Dreamy 2024 Toyota Land Cruiser 2-Door Pickup Truck Returns to Origins to Spite Tacoma

Let's take the United States automotive market. We have seen this year the appearance of heroes like the all-new Prius 'Hybrid Reborn,' the Corolla Cross Hybrid (which could morph into a compact truck according to the rumor mill), the Corolla Nightshade family, a triumvirate of GR special editions, the 2024 Grand Highlander three-row family CUV, and the N400 fourth-gen Tacoma.

But even though the two surely acted as fresh superstars of the American lineup, Toyota was still unsatisfied with the assault on GM's six-month sales crown. So, even though they may still lose the battle this year for the delivery throne, 2024 will be a whole different pie. That's owed chiefly to the full ramping of new Tacoma production and the start of sales for the returning Land Cruiser nameplate.

Following a three-year hiatus, Toyota has brought back the storied moniker – albeit not in J300 Land Cruiser form. Instead, the Japanese automaker waited a little longer and presented the 'light duty' version of the series, commonly known as 'Prado' in some regions of the world. Twinned with the J250 Lexus GX 550, the 2024 Land Cruiser has a significant advantage from the design standpoint because it has two versions to choose from – with squared or round headlights.

Plus, in place of the 3.4-liter twin-turbo V6 mill seen under the hood of the 2024 GX 550, the Toyota counterpart rocks the 326-hp electrified i-Force Max 2.4-liter turbo hybrid powertrain as seen with the Tacoma TRD Pro i-Force Max. Interestingly, that gave some people a lot of ideas. And the good folks inhabiting the imaginative realm of digital car content creators quickly started thinking that maybe we don't even need the Tacoma (or Hilux) anymore if we could have a 2024 Land Cruiser pickup truck.

Dimas Ramadhan, the virtual automotive artist behind the Digimods DESIGN channel on YouTube, is the pixel master that has taken up the task of revealing the next-gen Land Cruiser pickup truck – in CGI. The transformation is not without logic – diehard fans might remember the classic J20/30/40, and even the big J70 models were sold with many different body styles: three-door wagon, 4 door van, four-door station wagon, and above all, two-door soft top, hardtop, and pickup trucks!

As such, if Toyota ever decided to make a 2024 Land Cruiser (Prado or 250 in certain regions like Australia, parts of Europe, or Japan) pickup truck, it would simply be another move to return to its origins. However, the bigger issue at large would be that such a derivative might render the overseas Hilux and local Tacoma useless. So, most likely, this will forever remain just wishful thinking.