Top Gear rerun the Land Rover beats Toyota

I was so glad that a Land Rover won the Top Gear Award. However, I have just purchased a Land Cruiser Amazon after looking long and hard at the Range Rover before making my decision.

I love the new Range Rover, but I just couldn't drive 60k a year (40-50% off road) waiting for the time it would breakdown. When I test drove a Range Rover, I asked the dealer how many were in for repair; his answer "Five, all electronic problems and all less than nine months old".

Interesting thing I didn't know before I bought the Toyota: More Land Cruisers have been sold to date than all Land Rovers sold since their introduction. Toyota has nothed up sales of 3.9 million, well over a million more than the Land Rover.

Clive

Hmmm. . . . . a dealer who puts off potential customers - novel.

Not surprising really as you have to replace TLC's more often than you do Land Rovers - it's a good ploy to ensure continuous sales. Lots of old LR's round here, no old Toyotas!

Where have these figures come from? Why ask ...well on 17th February 1972 the VW Beetle became the most mass produced car ever notching up 2 Milllion.

Toyota Corrola has recently tipped the scales but then they have had several different versions so it hardly counts in real terms......

3.9 Million landcrusers seems alot by comparrison and tends to tip the Corrola off it's perch or are we talking Total Toyotas rather than specifically landcrusers in which case 2wd's hardly count.

Lee D

-- Project Percy - Jaguar 4.2 and Auto in to Series IIa 88 see it @

101Ambi '76 / IIa - Percy '64 / Rangie TD '90

alt.fan.landrover hall of fame -

On or around Sun, 27 Jul 2003 23:51:51 +0100, "Lee_D"

enlightened us thusly:

overall, worldwide, something close to 15 million beetles. It's the end of an era, though, the lats plant still producing them, in Mexico, is just about now producing a final limited run of ones which are styled to look like the original (1938 or whenever) model. I'll be sad to see it go, although by any objective assessment it's a crap car. not long ago, they were claiming 4.9 million golfs.

might be 3.9 million worldwide in all models, the TLC has been going quite a long time, must be getting on for 30 years. Mind you, you almost-never see the original ones in the UK, and not many older than about 10 years old.

True, but doing an annual mileage of around 60k, it's unlikely I'll keep my LC for more than 5 years.

I know several owners of 'older' Land Rovers. And most of them use it as a weekend 'fun' vehicle. I'm not talking about farmers, or people who use a LR as their main or 'daily' vehicle (before the flaming starts).

The older vehicles seem to be used as a 'fun off road play thing'. Many owners of Discos, RR, etc, seem to buy an old LR for off road, so they don't dirty or dent there precious 4x4 schoolbus.

My Amazon is my only vehicle and gets used daily; including a lot of off-road.

Clive

My wife has a 30 year old s111 she drives it every day for work and shopping .I think there are a lot off pepol that use them every day . As for my Disco that get the used for every thing that icludes off road .

charlie

(snip)

I first came across a Landcruiser in Queensland in 1963, and they were not new then. I suspect they date from the mid fifties, but did not really start to replace landrovers until the seventies. JD

Ah yes, but don't forget the Landcruiser sold in, say, Australia (the Aussie Ute) is a rather different animal than the one sold over here. Same name different vehicle.

On or around Mon, 28 Jul 2003 12:11:29 +0100, "Bob Hobden" enlightened us thusly:

I suspect the earlier ones are pretty similar. dunno what they're selling now.

For a full history:

The first one was 1950 and called the BJ, though compared with modern ones, it sucks. . . . . .;-)

Made fantastic TV! Nearly one of the best Top Gear episodes both times round.

Regards, Ben

btw it was a series 2 ;-)

|| | |||| Interesting thing I didn't know before I bought the Toyota: More |||| Land Cruisers have been sold to date than all Land Rovers sold |||| since their introduction. Toyota has nothed up sales of 3.9 |||| million, well over a million more than the Land Rover. |||| |||

On my way home tonight, saw a Toyota Land Cruiser being towed (very slowly) by a ... Vauxhall Cavalier!

Nearly crashed from the tears in my eyes.

On or around Tue, 29 Jul 2003 20:10:02 +0100, Austin Shackles enlightened us thusly:

and I meant to add, thought the bit where they got the lotus boys playing with the lada was hilarious. well impressive, once they'd finished it mind.

And so it should for 100,000 quids worth of job (the value to you or I if we'd asked them to do it). Talk about wrapping a ribbon around a turd...

no, nothing near a full history. that is only a history of LC's in america. the two door 78 series, (the 100/80 series is like the disco and the 78,75 series is like the series/county/defender) is still available in aus whereas the site says it was dropped in 1990. i don't know whether any other country still gets supplied with the 78 series??

istory.html

Full history of the original TLC which is what we were talking about - not the later ones.

Which makes me wonder if they couldn't find a more useful benificiary or the money, maybe like err...urang utangs, elephants, autistic kids...greenlane public access..but a lada ? come on !

Peter 'not amused' R.

Clarkson is already paid enough...

I don't believe any money changed hands. The Beed got an amusing piece, Lotus got a great free ad.

I don't think Lotus would have got any business benefit from spending

1000 hours on green lane clearing....

Tim Hobbs

'58 Series 2 '77 101FC Ambulance '95 Discovery V8i