The battle between strong demand and insufficient supply has affected the Toyota LandCruiser 70 Series once again.
Toyota Australia has confirmed it’s pausing customer orders for the 70 Series… but only in GXL Wagon guise.
It says the move to pause orders is intended to provide customers with “more certainty around delivery times for existing orders”.
“We know in the past, particularly through the COVID-19 pandemic and during the global semi-conductor supply shortage, vehicle supply challenges caused a degree of frustration with our customers with wait times for delivery of new vehicles being extended significantly,” said Sean Hanley, Toyota Australia vice president for sales, marketing and franchise operations.
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“We never want to be the cause of that frustration again so together with our dealer network, we are committed to carefully managing any supply issues to provide complete transparency for customers when issues outside our control arise.
“We continue to work with our parent company in Japan to optimise production and supply levels of all Toyota vehicles to ensure we can deliver and satisfy Australian customer demands.”
The rest of the range is unaffected, and Toyota Australia says it has “good supply” of all other LC70 variants.
It even says certain variants are in stock for immediate delivery, or with a maximum wait of between two and four months for new orders.
That’s a far cry from the supply situation for the old V8-powered LandCruiser 70 Series.
Toyota Australia paused orders for the V8 LC70 in July 2022, before closing them for good midway through 2024 as it worked to clear a significant back-order bank.
At one point, dealers were quoting wait times of four years “or never” for the venerable V8.
All LandCruiser 70 Series variants now come standard with a 2.8-litre turbo-diesel four-cylinder engine as seen in the HiLux and Prado, first made available here in late 2023.
This brought an automatic transmission to the 70 Series for the first time (a six-speed unit as standard), and a five-speed manual – like that matched to the now-defunct 4.5-litre turbo-diesel V8 – didn’t become available until late 2024.
“Since we launched the new four-cylinder LandCruiser 70 Series in late 2023, we have seen its appeal grow for Australian customers with strong demand across the entire range,” said Mr Hanley.
It’s a wide range, too. The top GXL trim is offered in Wagon, Troop Carrier and Double Cab Chassis body styles with the choice of manual or automatic transmissions.
The base WorkMate trim can be had with a manual or auto in either Troop Carrier or Double Cab Chassis configurations, while the WorkMate wagon and WorkMate, GX and GXL Single Cab Chassis variants are auto-only.