Toyota “LC Prado” Rendering Looks Like a Working Man’s Ute

Prado is how it’s called – or Purado in Japanese – and the fourth generation has been pretty much the same vehicle underneath the sheet metal since 2009. A pickup truck isn’t available, only three- and five-door options with four- and six-cylinder engines.

Through the magic of Photoshop, the [A] Tecnology design center in Colombia reimagined the Land Cruise Prado as a single-cab pickup with the OEM wheels and a black sports bar to bring the point home. An interesting proposition in its own right, the ute-bodied Prado won’t translate to a real-world model anytime soon.

The reason? Make that reasons, starting with the Land Cruiser 79 pickup truck that’s still on sale in a few parts of the world such as South Africa. In the mid-size segment, Toyota also has the Hilux and the Tacoma. As for bigger options, don’t forget the Tundra that’s built in San Antonio alongside the ever-popular ‘Taco.

Toyota intends to switch to an all-new platform for next-generation pickup trucks, the F1 or TNGA-F as it’s internally codenamed. The shared-platform strategy will bring together the Hilux, Tacoma, and Tundra in addition to the Land Cruiser.

The problem with the redesigned vehicle architecture, however, is that Toyota hasn’t designed it with V8s in mind. Hearsay suggests that the full-size Land Cruiser from the J300 series will switch to a twin-turbo V6 gasoline engine and hybrid assistance “in the pursuit of greater efficiencies and to reduce CO2 emissions.”

Even the Japanese automaker’s pickup trucks are expected to gain some sort of electrification, more so if you remember what will happen in Europe from 2021. To the point, the fleet average CO2 emissions target for new vehicles will be dropped to 95 grams per kilometer. Anything over that will be fined 95 euros multiplied with the number of vehicles a manufacturer sells in the Old Continent that year.