NCR - Not Camry Related, but Toyota...

Wish they would put a form of this in the car so I could set my cruise below

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Do you remember how it felt the very first time you engaged cruise control? That momentary sense of no longer being in control, that the car had assumed command? That's how Toyota's new crawl mode in the 2008 Land Cruiser feels at first. You select the function, take your foot off the brake, and the car proceeds under its own management.

Of course, in crawl mode (which functions only in low range) the new Cruiser moves forward very slowly-there are three speed choices on a rotary switch in the dash, and none of them is faster than a walking pace. The cool trick is that the vehicle will maintain that pace through thick and thin, adding power to get the truck over big moguls and using the traction control and downhill assist to negotiate holes and grades. All you need to do is steer.

See, there is still a job for the driver in this vehicle. The job is mainly to enjoy the huge ability this truck reveals in everything it does. The '08 Land Cruiser somehow manages to combine peerless refinement with effortless highway prowess and extraordinary off-road potential. To help deliver this amazing versatility, it boasts a new engine and transmission.

All U.S. Land Cruisers are powered by a 5.7-liter V-8 (known as the 3UR-FE, and also used in the Tundra full-sized pickup truck) that produces 381 horsepower at 5600 rpm and 401 pound-feet at 3600 rpm on regular gas. This big V-8-available in the U.S. market only-pedals through a six-speed automatic that features a low, 3.33:1 first gear and overdriven fifth and sixth gears for optimal economy. (Toyota's preliminary fuel-consumption estimates are 13 mpg in the city and 18 on the highway.)

This all-aluminum V-8 features the usual array of Toyota tech bits-variable valve timing, a variable-volume intake system, and an electronic fly-by-wire throttle. But what the specs don't tell you is how silky smooth and quiet this engine is on the highway. Only when you dig in for more power do you hear a muted yet mellifluous snarl from the engine bay.

And the Cruiser is undeniably strong, with throttle response that contradicts its fairly substantial mass of about 5700 pounds. That's the torque talking. There's enough of it that the new Cruiser has a revised towing capacity of 8500 pounds, up 2000 pounds over the outgoing model, with an 850-pound tongue weight. As you can imagine, the Cruiser roves the highways with plenty in reserve when unladen.

Helping the big SUV feel taut and responsive is a stout new frame with fully boxed sections and no fewer than eight crossmembers, reportedly improving torsional rigidity by 40 percent over the model it replaces. Flexural improvement is said to be 20 percent.

A newly adopted coil-spring front suspension replaces the previous torsion-bar mechanism; a solid axle is utilized as before at the rear, with a four-link suspension and a Panhard rod. But the real magic in this new undercarriage is a technique Toyota calls a Kinetic Dynamic Suspension System, which allows for pretty disciplined anti-roll-bar rates without harming off-road performance.

How does it work? Well, there's a mechanically operated hydraulic linkage between the front and rear anti-roll bars that responds when the two axles articulate in opposite planes, disengaging the bars. So there's confident roll-motion control on the highway and compliant articulation off-road-precisely what you want in a luxury SUV that will spend most of its time hauling suburbanites to work and play.

Actually, it's probably a lot more than you need in a vehicle of this type. After all, who buys a wood-trimmed, leather-wrapped three-row luxury SUV to scale a mountain? Who needs nearly nine inches of ground clearance and more than nine inches of wheel travel to reach the supermarket? Not to mention the dual-range full-time all-wheel drive, with its lockable Torsen center differential and array of electronic assistants.

But the Land Cruiser is Toyota's global durability showcase, and more is expected of this model than any other. Perhaps because of the Cruiser's international following (the vehicle is the bestselling SUV of any kind in the Middle East), its new design is decidedly evolutionary. There are no heroic Nissan Murano-like experiments with styling here, just a clean modernization of the concept. In fact, the executive chief engineer on this project, Hideki Watanabe, made it clear that his objectives were to maintain priority on essential four-wheel-drive functions while pursuing what he called an advanced and rugged design direction.

Cruiser devotees will not be disappointed. Utility has been improved at every turn. Every convenience item known to the driving public has been integrated in a properly mature fashion, with sensible controls laid out in an unostentatious manner. There's even a provision for heated second-row seats, and for a refrigerated center-console cooler box. Four-zone climate control is standard, with a total of 28 (!) air outlet registers, and the standard sound system is a 605-Watt JBL with 14 speakers. The optional packages can add navigation and a DVD entertainment system.

With all this new hardware comes a bigger price. When Land Cruisers hit showrooms this October, pricing will start at $63,885, or almost $7000 more than the outgoing model.

As one might expect, the new Cruiser is replete with safety equipment, including a barrage of airbags-including front-knee and three-row curtain-and Toyota's optional precollision system, which cinches the front seatbelts when the various electronic sensors detect skidding or sudden hard braking.

Our early experiences with the new Cruiser were provided at a ski resort in Big Sky, Montana, where Toyota engineers sought to replicate what they call suitability testing. This is the human validation of systems derived from extensive computer analysis and processing. Here we encountered steep downhill grades on shifting, crunching scree, where the Toyota's integrated stability and traction systems added to the sound with a series of staccato servo actuations.

And where we pointed the vehicle at steep, twisting turns in the trail and had the active traction control mediate between our right foot and the tires' contact patches. Most impressive, though, was that eerie determination shown in crawl mode, where the new Land Cruiser traversed serious obstacles with no assistance from the driver other than steering inputs, feeling for grip and braking against too-rapid transitions like something more sentient than a collection of high-tech hardware ought to be. Sure, we're used to cruise control now. But this crawl mode is going to take a little longer.