Toyota brings back 70 series - for 1 year of production only

Yanks have never ever had the 70series.
The way I read it, the 1 year bit is for Japanese customers - they are the ones who haven't had it for 10 years and are pushing for it - I can see them lowering it, adding chrome and doof-doof :-)

Yes, I understood this 70 series was being revived for the domestic market - but I didn't see anything about types of powerplants available.

And when you say ...
"It is basically a petrol version of the one that has always been available in Australia. Airbags and ABS are the same as have been available here for about 4 years." ... isn't there some major differences between the current 70 series as compared to the 2004 model, such as the wider front axle?

They might be getting produced for the domestic market, but I'll wager a lot will find their way into foreign countries.

Japan has some shonky business practices in place. Nephew was buying quite a few almost-new Caterpillar dozers from Japan. They were about 2-3 yrs old and had done virtually no work. It turns out the explanation was, Japanese business people buy these new big Cats for some kind of major tax gain (accelerated depreciation to greatly reduce tax?), store them in sheds, and then they sell the machine out of the country, and probably get a payment that they avoid tax on, in some way.
I'm not sure of the precise details, but the whole deal seemed pretty suss to me. However, I wouldn't be surprised if the likes of the Yakuza were involved.

I wouldn't be surprised to see some Japs buying up a heap of these new (repro) 70 series, stockpiling them, gaining tax advantages, then exporting them to buyers in other countries who will fight over them.
The prices the Japs ask for used Toyotas (particularly the 4WD's) for export from Japan is laughable - yet they seem to get close to their asking prices most of the time.

The only problem Ron is the rest of the world have had the 70 series as a main stream vehicle for many years that's still readily available from their local Toyota dealer.

Jeff,
I have a beautiful low cut evening dress and high heels that most would kill for when I step into a Prado. One thing though I just love the illuminated vanity mirror.

We should both go and put on our flack jackets.

Isn't popcorn popular among children....cross dressing..mmmm :)

(Sits back with beer).

Cheers
Greg

And this quote "People who buy the 70 Series will be those who think driving is fun."

Driving a 70 series isn't something I would call fun.

I've got a wheelbarrow. In fact I've got 3 of them.
There's probably 3 billion of them, worldwide.
They work great - and they have done since the Chinese apparently invented them in 200AD.

They do the job they're designed to do beautifully, and they rarely break down.
In the rare instances they do break down, they can be fixed by the average Joe Bloggs with a few basic tools - and he doesn't need a $7000 OBD reader to find the fault - and he doesn't have to bend over and be shafted by a $5000 repair bill for Chinese-made electronic parts.

Wheelbarrows pioneered Australia. Large portions of the cut and fill you drive over every day on highways - or ride over on railways, were constructed by picks, shovels and wheelbarrows.
Their handiwork has survived for over 200 years here, and for nearly 2000 years in the rest of the world - and they still make wheelbarrows.

Yes, they're not the most comfortable thing to drive, but there's a group of people who don't seek out lounge-room comfort with inbuilt home theatre, every time they go to do some work.

Methinks you love high-tech electronics and extreme complexity in 4WD's because it's your bread and butter, and you've become very wealthy because of its very existence.

Me? Give me a basic vehicle for work and the bush. After all, that was the primary principle behind the invention of 4WD utes and work vehicles, and it shouldn't be forgotten.
The problem with todays vehicles is they're becoming more like Chinese toasters every day.
The day it doesn't fire up when you hit the switch, you dump it in the bin and go get a new one.

A farmer client and I were discussing the way vehicle design was going around 1980.
He stated, in words ominously prescient - "Ya know, in the future, I can see where you'll buy a vehicle and it won't even have a bonnet you can open. It will have a little flap in the mudguard where you check the oil and water - and when it fails to start, you'll take it back to the dealer, and he'll throw it in a skip bin, and sell you a new one!"

This blokes words are the most accurately prophetic I've ever heard. We've still got a little way to go, but his description will be fulfilled within a few years, that's for sure.

Seriously Ron, based on the number of newer vehicles on the road we don't see any more problems then the older vehicles.

Trucks and earthmoving have been running complex electronics for years and operating in the worst enviroments and conditions, sure they do fail but so did the old stuff, we have customers who have over 3 million K on some trucks with much of the original electronics.

Ron you have to start accepting the new stuff is very reliable, yes it is different to repair and you need different diagnostic skill...... the same happened when personnel computers first hit the marker with many saying it was a fad and the pen and paper would rule supreme....... Australia Post said much the same thing.

It's just some have to learn a different skill set and a few will not be able to cope with that and will always say the old stuff is better.

If we stayed the same way you think; could you imagine medical procedures and diagnostics, how businesses would operate with no mobile phones, computers, internet banking.......people not being able to do on line purchases and run there day from the palm of their hand...we don't have to live in the dark ages and think everything built after 1980 is crap and will fail.

It if funny how some older people brace technology and have a very good under standing of it and then you have a few who can't, I think the can't comes from not wanting to understand it..... so In return they try to rubbish it and discourage it for others.

Ron technology is moving forward not backwards.

All I know museums will become play houses for the older generation to come and reminisce...... but they will have to pay upon entry by their smart phone.

And one last thing your comments are much the same when the automobile was first invented..... you remind me of a horse and cart owner saying under his breath "those fandangle auto self propelled vehicle will never take of.... it's a passing fad.... and what happens when the breakdown or stop?"

Well, I think the most interesting part of the Toyota engineers words are;

"But to meet emissions regulations, we had to give up the idea of no electronic controls for the engine."

By inference, this then reveals that the major reason why we have so many electronic items on vehicles today is purely to meet emission regulations - not because of any increase in efficiency (economy) or reliability!

It's been noted that engine efficiencies as regards fuel economy have increased by very little in the last 30 years. In numerous cases, actual engine economy has declined - the increases in efficiency have come from elsewhere.

One of those "elsewhere" areas, is in weight saving (manufacturers claim to have reduced car weights by 140kgs in the last 30 yrs by utilising vastly increased amounts of aluminium and plastic).

Even more interesting is that that weight reduction hasn't transferred into lighter vehicles overall - because that 140 kgs of weight saving in basic construction has been eaten up by the addition of the vast number of electronics and accessories that are now deemed "necessary" by manufacturers.

Another area of recent gains is in streamlining - flush windows, slippery shapes, removing anything that contributes to parasitic drag.

Drag coefficient

A third area of recent gains is in low-friction chasing - low friction oils, low friction rings, low friction tyres, low friction roller bearings.

The conclusion to be arrived at, is that we could have totally electronic free engines and drivetrains if it wasn't for introduced tight laws and regulations that drive the designers to load engines and drivetrains up with electronics to meet those regulations.

Every added sensor or controller and additional piece of wiring is another source of problems when rough conditions are encountered.

The thing is that vehicle design isn't driven by users - its driven by manufacturers and their engineers and their MARKETING people - who produce what they THINK will sell - not necessarily what people actually want.

Around 1975, the brother bought a new Statesman. It had a lot of "fruit" on it he didn't want. He wanted a basic, big roomy car.
During his discussions with the GMH dealer salesman, the salesman admitted that GM had done a lot of research as to what people wanted - and they found that people wanted to buy big roomy, simple cars - but that intense competition in the marketplace meant they had to offer lots of (often needless) accessories, that meant their vehicles appealed to buyers better in brochures, and on the showroom floor.

I'm still a great believer in the KISS principle, and I hate being shafted by manufacturers who introduce secretive and costly technology that so often prevents us from being able to examine, repair, or find alternatives to the "captive customer" stuff that they ensnare us with.

Ron

As a casual observation you are simply living in the wrong century, and I’m not mocking your view, you are entitled to it.

But the reality is nothing stands still – it moves forward for better or worse.

On emission controls, we have them ; that is the reality and perhaps if we didn’t have them we may not have the electronic gadgetry – whether that is good or bad I’ll leave it others to debate. But it could be argued, pondered and debated ad nauseum, but it won’t change the reality!

I’m not sure of where you are taking this?

Cheers, and a good weekend,
Baz – The Landy

One of the areas that hasn't been considered along with emission controls, comfort level accessories is that of Safety.

With the inclusion of Airbags, self tightening seat belts, ABS, ESC and other TLA's all of which are electronically and computer controlled our cars are much safer.

When i read these threads i always get the feeling that people forget that old cars did breakdown, old cars where not always fixable on the side of the road for many reasons, and although the cost of parts where cheap by todays standards they were still expensive based on the wage of the day.

Alan

Ron you have to stop bringing up things from the past as you do in most of your posts, we are living in 2014 and times machines are still not around yet.

Electronics in motor vehicles have been around since the 70's and over the years they have got smarter and better in both function and reliability.

Technology is everywhere whether you like it or not.

Alan S (WA)....... didn't you know mechanics and road side assist have only started since the onset of these new vehicles hitting our roads...... before that mechanics use to sit around and do nothing...... may took up oil painting and gardening to pass the time.

Yes many have forgotten the numerous head gaskets, worn cams and lifter, engine rebuilds at 80,000 miles, brakes getting totally overhauled at 50,000 miles, starters and alternators getting rebuilt and constant wheel alignments trying to stop tyres scrubbing....... oh and not forgetting radiators and water pumps leaking plus the carby and dissy rebuilds.

As you said.... not much went wrong in the good old days.

The reasons engines on older vehicles only lasted 50,000 miles was because air cleaners were either non existent, or a piece of tin with spiral louvres like a precleaner - and very few roads were sealed.

The reason front ends were continually going out of alignment was because what passed for "main roads" in those days would be classed as "4WD only" today.

The potholes on the Eyre "highway" in the 1960's would swallow a car. Creek washouts and spoon drains on country roads were common because of a lack of culverts.

Starters and generators needed rebuilding more because of the sheer amounts of dust, dirt, and mud they had to cope with, on those old roads.

Radiators and water pumps needed replacing more often because high-tech coolants and inhibitors hadn't been invented.

Carbies last just as long as fuel injectors, if not longer - and a set of fuel injectors runs to more cost, than a carby rebuild kit ever used to.

I'd like to see todays cars used on the roads of the 40's & 50's and see how they'd perform.
Even in 1965 when I left the city to work in the bush, most of the few hundred miles of bitumen outside the city was single lane - necessitating getting well off the bitumen onto the shoulder to pass oncoming cars.
The shoulders were always a nightmare of loose gravel, ruts, rocks, and trash.

And we always drove the old Holdens and Fords and Chryslers at the same speed and higher speeds than we do today, because there were no speed limits.
I used to flog my EH Holden ute at 80-85mph regularly (128-137kmh) in the mid-1960's - and that old 179 did 170,000kms without being touched (apart from a fibre timing gear that sheared) before I traded it on a new HK Holden ute. It still burnt bugger-all oil at that mileage, and the head had never been off it.

The HK ute went up North, across to Darwin, back to Adelaide and then back to Perth in July 1969 on "roads" that 90% of 4WD'ers wouldn't drive on today.
The NW Coastal Hwy was two wheeltracks across the plains - and every now and then you'd have to swerve like mad to avoid a hole in the road that was a metre deep - where a semi-trailer had sunk to the makers name, and been dragged out with a bulldozer - and they'd neglected to fill the hole in.

Bulldust hid potholes so deep that you couldn't see the road because the bulldust came over the bonnet like a wave.
Some of you blokes have short memories - or you've been born too late to experience what the old roads really were like.

I had an EH Holden Wagon that I drove all around North Queensland. But on balance, I'll take the Toyota 79 Series any day!

Cheers

Mate they are spacious compared to sitting in a Defender

Disco,

Your admitted bias against Toyotas is obviously clouding your senses, if you think the current 70 series "is not much of an improvement on the original."

Improvement isn't just driveability, but also durability and robustness. The '40's didn't have radios, but that didn't matter because you wouldn't have been able to hear it over the rattles from the doors, windows, transmission and the seats. Later models are quiet, the only extra noise is often from oversize muddies, or Deep Purple playing on the CD/AM/FM radio.

Front and rear axle housings are beefed up, and rarely bend. King pin bearings are bigger, the studs that hold the k/pin caps are bigger, and destroyed k/pin bearings seem to have passed into history.

Brakes are a vast improvement, from those drum brakes of the '60's. Any Toyota used near bull dust, and water crossings, usually needed a complete overhaul, just to adjust the shoes. I'd imagine there are some mechanics, and home handymen, that could change a full set of brake pads on a current model, in well under an hour.

I could go on, but................you just can't compare the two, the improvements are too numerous.

Suspension and seating mightn't suit some but I'll bet there's heaps driving around with the original suspension/seating. After all they are a work vehicle, we only make them into touring/pleasure vehicles.

Bob