When it comes to exploring the wild landscapes of Africa, the choice of vehicle can make or break your safari experience. Safari operators and adventurers alike often ask, why are Land Cruisers ideal for safari use? The answer lies in a blend of durability, off-road capability, safety, and comfort.
Durability and Reliability
One of the strongest reasons Land Cruisers are ideal for safari use is their durability. Safaris often involve long journeys through rough and uneven terrains, from rocky trails to muddy river crossings. Unlike many modern SUVs that prioritize style over substance, the Land Cruiser is designed for longevity. Its parts are built to last, even under extreme heat, dust, and challenging terrain that are common across Africa’s wilderness areas.
Unmatched Off-Road Capability
Another reason Land Cruisers are ideal for safari use is their off-road performance. Safari routes are rarely paved, and vehicles often need to cross rivers, climb rocky paths, or traverse through soft sand. The Land Cruiser’s off-road technology-such as locking differentials and crawl control-makes it perfectly suited to these conditions.
Comfort and Safety
While safaris are about adventure, comfort and safety are equally important. The Land Cruiser excels in both. Land Cruisers are known for their spacious interiors, strong suspension, and air-conditioning options. Additionally, safety is a top priority. With a sturdy frame and proven track record in tough environments, the Land Cruiser offers reassurance to both operators and passengers.
Customization and Adaptability
Another reason Land Cruisers are ideal for safari use is their customization potential. Safari tour companies often modify Land Cruisers to fit specific requirements.
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Proven Performance Across Africa
Safari operators in Kenya, Tanzania, Botswana, Namibia, and South Africa consistently rely on Land Cruisers for their tours. Their widespread use has created a proven track record that builds trust among travelers.
Financial Considerations
For safari operators, the financial side of choosing a vehicle also matters. Land Cruisers hold their resale value better than most vehicles, thanks to their reputation for durability and reliability.
The Toyota Land Cruiser Troopy
The Toyota Land Cruiser Troopy is the perfect car for game viewing on safari. This Land Cruiser model has (up to) six window seats and a pop-up roof. Kindly note that while we ensure that our vehicles are well-maintained, they are not new. As a result, the driving comfort and quality of features, such as the audio, may not be comparable to what you might experience in a new car you drive at home or rent in Southern Africa. You will not find a new Land Cruiser for hire in Kenya. The classic Land Cruisers you see on safari in Kenya can be twenty years old, but don't let this fool you.
Capacity: Six seats. So if you travel with a driver-guide, your own travel group can be five people maximum. All the vehicles have 4WD. Depending on the number of people and load, 40 PSI in the front and 45 PSI in the back. The tyre pressure is well-adjusted. Traffic police in Kenya are very strict about speed limits.
Driving the Land Cruiser 79-Series Namib Edition
Here's what it was like driving 1,000 South African miles in a Toyota Land Cruiser 79-Series Namib Edition, a vehicle we should sing ballads about when we finally lay flowers on the grave of fossil fuels. This spec has a big turbodiesel V8, manual transmission, two solid axles, front and rear locking differentials, an ARB bumper, snorkel, four-wheel drive that's activated with a lever, no driver aids, no traction control. For those of you who aren't into trucks and would like a little context: These are all the features that off-road enthusiasts put on their Christmas lists every year.
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The loaner truck I found waiting for me was sprayed in the perfect shade of "Let's Go Look For Elephants" tan. I threw my junk on the back seat and headed east. I'd made it to a place called Kruger National Park, or "the Kruger," as it's sometimes called. It's a wildlife refuge where people can visit South Africa's majestic animals. And it is enormous.
Early in the planning stages of this trip I had to make a choice: prioritize hardcore off-roading or seeing creatures. Spending almost all my time in the Kruger limited my off-road testing to dirt tracks, little puddles and one tiny section of technical muddy wheeling, but it did grant me more chances to meet animals than if I'd gone rock crawling.
The Kruger has a vast network of dirt and paved roads snaking through it. The whole place is run by SAN Parks (South Africa National Parks), but there are dozens of subcontractor safari host companies that are permitted to operate inside the Kruger's boundaries. As a visitor, you can pretty much be as independent or as coddled as you want.
Some of my favorite photos from the trip came from sitting in one of the park's pickup truck bus-things. The tourist rigs are limited in range, though, and they only do quarter-day length trips to make sure nobody gets too hangry.
The cab is pretty much just big chunks of plastic, and there aren't many buttons to push. But the quality of the interior here is... kind of a mind-screw. Everything's basic, but beefy. Power feels plentiful, though the actual output claim is a modest 200-odd HP with about 317 lb-ft of torque. The clutch has manageable heft to it, and shift throws are long. The ride quality is surprisingly nice, too.
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Highlights of my animal sightings include: A couple of lions humping about 10 feet from my driver side door (I was too scared to roll the window down at that range), hyenas gnawing at my rear bumper, a croc hoping I'd get out of my truck so he could eat me, getting stuck behind an elephant who insisted on using the road for miles and miles before traipsing into the trees so I could pass, hippos in the water, zebras, baby elephants, bathing elephants, even more elephants, and giraffes. Also, buffalo in rivers. Giraffes are so freaking bizarre to behold in person. They're like tree-horses and move as such.
The creature popped out of the thick tree line like I was on a damn Disneyland ride, ears flapping, suddenly taking up the whole road. I froze, slowly raised my phone to snap a picture (couldn't help myself), and realized this must be dad, emerging to play crossing guard for two smaller elephants. We stared at each other for a very, very long half minute. The elephant took a step forward. Determined not to offend him, but becoming just a little concerned we were going to clash, I put the truck into reverse and tip-toed backwards.
Luckily all my other close encounters with elephants - and there were plenty over the course of the week - were stress-free. The Kruger doesn't let anybody drive at night.
"Haha, dang brue," one of the pro guides shook his head as he looked at the brutally flat seats in my truck. He'd come over to check out the machine, I offered up my stash of beers, and the conversation got friendly in short order. The 79-Series Cruiser is rugged, but I never found its basic canvas-wrapped seats uncomfortable.
This truck insists that you focus on driving. Relax too much and it wanders off into another lane. Shifting gears looks like a CrossFit exercise. Power spools up slowly, but as you roll into the throttle, the available energy never seems to end. This Cruiser made me feel important. It didn't hurt that everyone made way when I came through groups of people, too. Tourists were giving the Sand Beige Land Cruiser a wide berth assuming, I imagine, that I was some kind of park official.
The truck shrugged off rough roads without issue, obviously. To my mild disappointment I never even needed to lock a diff, and barely used four-wheel drive. Keeping an eye on my fuel, and the time of day, and the distances between camps on a physical map ensured that I didn't get stuck outside camp fences when gates got locked. I just paired the device via Bluetooth, and then could text my wife from anywhere in the world. As much as I love extreme solitude, I have an easier time enjoying it with a working panic button on hand.
A 1,000 miles of driving a new truck built like an old truck pretty much reinforced lots of car-enthusiast clichés for me. With the Garmin tucked away, it was very easy to forget if I was adventuring in 2020 or 1980 or somewhere in between while I was rolling around in the 79-Series. Climate control doesn't need to be more than a red/blue knob. Seats don't need to be covered in leather.
It'd be hard to have a bad time on a road trip with the world's most amazing animals outside of your windows, and it was tough to shave this story down to a readable length.
Land Cruiser History Movie
Land Cruiser Dominance in Africa
When a car has that level of success, it ceases to be just a car. In Africa Toyota is big politics, a maker and destroyer of states, a decider of wars, the great African post-Cold War zeitgeist, the ideological barometer of its 21st century, the vessel of masculinity, a pedestal for big egos, a symbol of power, and even a signal for when an African big man is about to change mistresses, all rolled into one.
For decades the seemingly unbreakable and barebones Land Rover was king of Africa’s bad roads. The heritage passed on to post-independence Africa; the District Commissioner drove in one, as did the Police chief, the coup-making Army chief and junior officers, the government minister touring the countryside, the president inspecting a military parade on Independence Day, the humanitarian organisation feeding people struck by famine, the Health Ministry and NGO do-gooders vaccinating children in villages and distributing oral rehydration salts to women, the Police cracking down on protestors, the army fighting rebels, the rebels fighting the army, tourists on safari to see lions in wildlife parks; game rangers chasing down poachers, and poachers carrying off tusks they had just plucked off slaughtered elephants.
In East Africa in the 1960s and 1970s, the chase car of choice for the Police and lead vehicle in the convoys of newly installed independent presidents and prime ministers was the Peugeot 404. In the 1970s and early 80s, the Peugeot pickup ruled the roost briefly and was especially adaptable as a public mini-bus (matatu). Ugandan military dictator Field Marshal Idi Amin was madly in love with the Peugeot 504. In the morning, he would drive his open-roof Land Rover and then jump behind the wheel of the 504 in the afternoon to drive around at high speed.
A series of events, directly and indirectly, led to Toyota’s Africa triumph. The first was an “eastward” ideological shift. With infrastructure decayed under one-party and military regimes, and fuel prices through the roof, Africa needed a hardy but versatile vehicle, with lower consumption and maintenance cost than the Land Rover and Peugeot - preferably from a source that didn’t have history on the continent as a coloniser or Cold War patron of local oppressors.
The biggest advertisement for Toyota was quite bloody, coming via the Great Toyota War which took place in 1987 in Northern Chad and on the Chad-Libya border, the last phase of the Chadian-Libyan War. The 1987 war resulted in a heavy defeat for Libya, at the hands of Habré’s forces, with some accounts reporting that it lost one-tenth of its army, with 7,500 men killed. Chadian forces suffered 1,000 deaths.
The post-Cold War reforms produced economic booms in several African countries, and despite continued conflicts in places, Africa entered its longest unbroken period of relative peace and stability. There has been a population explosion, rapid urbanisation, hectic gentrification, and a dizzying mushrooming of skyscrapers. In the madding crowds, tall buildings, and streets that in cities like Uganda’s capital Kampala look like lunar surfaces, the old symbol of prestige, the low-riding Mercedes Benz, just wouldn’t do. The big men and women had to go higher and encase themselves in more robust car cockpits.
It also became a symbol of power and prestige, an essential item for the political class and the elite. Newly powerful African men, change up their lifestyle considerably to match their new station, and a new wife or mistress, is par for the course. And they have splashed a lot of their wealth on Toyotas.
If the 1987 Chadian-Libyan War was the first Toyota War, the Sudan conflict is Toyota War 2.0, and more deadly. And those pushing for peace, and working to feed and save the millions imperilled by the war, also ride in their Toyotas - without the mounted machines.
In June, Toyota launched the fifth generation of its Land Cruiser Prado in the South African market. In its first two months, nearly 1,000 units were sold! Launches of the new Prado followed in a couple of other African countries including Mozambique and Kenya, where last year, the motor grapevine had it that the demand for a range of Land Cruisers, driven by new members of Parliament and state agencies, was so high that the waiting time to fulfil an order at Toyota Kenya was pushed to nearly one year. Despite new models retailing at between $65,000 and $120,000 in a continent where workers in some countries earn just $50 a month, big Toyota sports utility vehicles (SUVs) are the rage.
Rajinder's Toyota Safari Cruiser
I just spent 10 days bounding across the Dark Continent in a "Real Man's" Land Cruiser. Devotees of the brand will recognize the cab as that of a sixth-generation 70-Series model that has been produced since 1984 but was never imported to North America. And even at our top speeds of maybe 50 mph on smoothish gravel highways, passengers in the fourth row could easily hear the driver speak when the windows and hatches were closed.
Apparently Rajinder's Toyota Safari Cruiser 7X conversion is THE vehicle of choice, because it comprised most of the traffic we encountered in 10 days on photo safari. There are Land Rover Defender 110s, some with similar high-roof hatch conversions, but our Kibo Guides driver, Moses Kihomwe, says that Rovers are more expensive to buy, less reliable in service, more expensive to repair, and considerably faster depreciating in value than the Toyotas. He's put most of the 52,000 kilometers on this truck since the company bought it in 2006, and maintenance between trips is modest--thorough cleaning, lubrication of all joints, and repair of any flat tires (the trucks carry two spares and one of our two trucks sprang a slow leak).
This third-world Land Cruiser features live axles at both ends, coil springs in front, leafs in back, with anti-roll bars on both. The front hubs are manual-locking, the front and rear differentials can each be locked via a switch on the dash, and the rear diff is offset to the right to line up with the front diff. A standard snorkel keeps the 4.2L, 24-valve diesel idling happily in water up to the driver's forehead. Moses says he's had water over the hood on some rainy-season drives, but for our dry-season adventure the hubs remained unlocked and we maintained rear-drive throughout--even when climbing impressive 40-percent grades with a full load.
Fuel consumption improves by nearly 5 mpg in rear-drive mode, but rear tires last half as long as the fronts (using 4WD would equalize that, but tires are cheaper than fuel).The Rajinder Land Cruiser offers few frills (A/C and a stereo cassette are about it),but it suggests a new meaning for the phrase "Creature Comforts:"the comfort that one takes in believing the vehicle will keep creatures out, should that nearby elephant, hippo, or rhino suffer a sudden attack of camera shyness.
The side windows slide shut quickly and are high enough to clear the horns of angry impala contesting for alpha dominance of the female herd. Should the lions mating roadside or dining on cape buffalo take a sudden interest in a bi-pedal bite, however, there'd be little we could quickly do to keep them out, as the hatch covers remove to be stacked at the rear of the roof.
The alternative is a large one-piece roof panel that raises on scissors hinges or parallelogram bars. This setup provides shade when up but limits the view of monkeys in trees overhead, and since lions, leopards, and cheetahs tend not to be much interested in clawing at fearful tourists through roof hatches, the removable hatch idea seems best.
This mid-price safari adventure was by far the most expensive pleasure trip I've ever taken. Cheaper ones are available for those willing to seriously rough it, and determined trust-funders can certainly spend a lot more. It was absolutely worth every penny and worth stretching the budget a little for. But whoever books your trip, insist they enlist Kibo Guides as your hosts in Tanzania. Their team of highly trained guides is linked via UHF radios to tip each other off as to the whereabouts of elusive animals, and we found their food, drink, lodgings, and overall logistics to be utterly first-world and first-rate.
Frequently Asked Questions
- Why are Land Cruisers better than other 4x4s for safaris?
Land Cruisers outperform many 4x4s in terms of durability, off-road capability, and adaptability. - Are Land Cruisers comfortable for long safari trips?
Yes, Land Cruisers are known for their spacious interiors, strong suspension, and air-conditioning options.
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