2026 Toyota Land Cruiser Prado review

Toyota’s revamped Land Cruiser Prado landed here in late 2024, the first new Prado in about 15 years. It’s a solid upgrade too, with a new platform, looks and engines. While Toyota has worked hard in refining its light-duty SUV, it’s still all about the rough stuff, which we’ll get to in due time. 

This one on test is the very base model, the five-seater GXL, possibly the one targeted most by folks looking to customise every inch of their Prados. But even in its standard form the Prado GXL is a very impressive piece of kit. Let’s get into it.

How much does the Toyota Land Cruiser Prado GXL Hybrid cost? 

Being the entry point to the Land Cruiser Prado range, you might expect the GXL to be something of a bargain. I’m not sure I’d put it in that category, as while it is the most affordable model, a starting price of $84,990 might be hard to stomach for some. Though, to be fair, regular users of Trade Me will know how well Land Cruisers keep their value.

Just two Prado models are available as five-seaters, the GXL and Adventure. You can’t get the top-spec VX Limited with five seats, or the mid-spec VX, which is interesting. Presumably, Toyota is watching the sales data and adjusting the range according to what people buy. The full Prado range is below, with the five-seater models first (three if you include the Adventure with two-tone paint).

What’s the Toyota Land Cruiser Prado GXL Hybrid like on the inside?

Toyota has given the Prado a really cool blunt design inside. There are lots of rectangular motifs, with blocky controls on the blocky steering wheel and a blocky gear selector sitting below blocky centre vents. It’s very tough, and looks great with the retro square exterior.

The GXL gets synthetic leather seats with powered adjustment, a leather steering wheel, tri-zone climate control, and a ten-speaker audio system. So while it’s still the base model, it’s not really specified like a base model.

More of interest is the boot. See, the seven-seater Prado has a problem here. The third row of seats had to be mounted quite high to accommodate the hybrid stuff in the rear as well as hit Toyota’s targets for off-roading. When folded down they can’t really descend anywhere into the chassis so they just sort of sit there.

To fix this, Toyota built a thin storage box that sits in the sliver of space remaining and creates a flat floor when those extra two seats are folded down. It means that you can actually use the boot but it’s really making the best with what you’ve got, right? Because when the seats are up and in use, you’ve got very little space for storage.

That issue is largely fixed in the five-seater. The boot floor is still high but its all uniform and rubberised for dirty things. You also get a similar storage box as the seven-seaters, in case you want to keep anything separate. Weirdly, Toyota doesn’t actually say how much storage space there is in either Prado. If your priorities are hauling gear over people, this is definitely the one to go for. Plus, if you are that way inclined, the more rugged GXL should be a higher priority.

What’s under the bonnet?

All Prados come with the same electrified 2.8-litre diesel engine pulled from the Hilux. It makes 150kW/500Nm, enough to haul 3500kg behind it without much trouble. It’s about as refined as you might expect - that diesel rattle is still there - but it’s an effortless sort of engine. You might not be amazed by the raw performance but this engine will do absolutely everything you throw at it, and more. It’s just a little underwhelming.

An eight-speed transmission shuffles gears and power, which is fantastic. It’s much smoother than the Hilux’s six-speed, and helps keep that fuel consumption down as well. Interestingly, as an aside, Toyota isn’t giving this transmission to the revamped Hilux due here later in the year. 

The hybrid system is really a 48 volt mild-hybrid, not like the stronger electricals in, say, the RAV4. That means fuel consumption is only okay, sitting at around 9.5L/100km (Toyota claims 8.6L/100km). To be fair, the engine is powering a full-time four-wheel drive system and hauling 2.6 tonnes in curb weight, so keeping that number under 10 isn’t bad going really. 

To be clear, I don’t hate the powertrain in the Prado by any means, it’s incredibly functional and reliable in that Toyota way. I just wish there was an option to have something slightly more interesting under the bonnet to go with the retro-futuristic looks. Something like the full-hybrid ‘i-Force Max’ seen in the North American Tacoma would be amazing - a 2.4-litre turbo-petrol engine with a parallel hybrid system making 243kW/630Nm. But that might be missing the point of the Prado a bit.

How does the Toyota Land Cruiser Prado GXL Hybrid drive?

I mean, it’s a Prado. It’s absolutely chuffing brilliant. 

On-road manners are superb, with not much road noise entering the cabin even with all-terrain tyres equipped. There is a bit more than you might expect, but that’s probably to keep some Prado-ness about the new model. Being a ladder-chassis vehicle, there’s also the occasional bump and sway around corners or over potholes. A bit more rough as guts, you might say, and its hardly enough to be concerned about.

The interior is fantastic. Everything feels high quality to the touch, and both front seats are heated and ventilated. Not bad for an entry model. You don’t get a head-up display, but that’s okay. You also don’t get the full 12.3-inch digital display behind the wheel, instead a smaller 7-inch multi-information display. 

The ten-speaker audio system is great, if not quite as potent as the JBL stuff in higher grades. This would be an easy thing to modify if you’re interested in a new Prado to really make your own.

As mentioned, the engine delivers a constant flow of power, assuredly pulling whatever you have in the boot or attached behind. The eight-speed transmission is very good at figuring out which gear it needs and sticking with it, avoiding bouncing between cogs. 

Full-time four-wheel drive means you’ve got oodles of grip and capability at your disposal. However, being the entry model, there are a few things missing that serious off-roaders might want. The GXL doesn’t get a locking rear differential, a sway-bar disconnect feature, Toyota’s trick Multi-Terrain Select or the Multi-Terrain Monitor, which means while you can definitely do proper off-roading with the mechanical prowess of the Prado, you might struggle in the tougher stuff, or if you’re a bit newer to the whole thing. 

Of course, seasoned overlanders might appreciate the chance to customised their Prado a bit more with an aftermarket differential, and may not need the off-road drive modes.

What do you get?

The Land Cruiser Prado GXL gets a pretty good specification sheet, considering it is the entry point to the range. There are only two five-seater Prado models at the moment, so we’ve only included those below. If you want more equipment, the range-topping VX Limited can be had with seven seats.

Toyota Land Cruiser Prado GXL 5-Seater specification highlights:

• Full-time four-wheel drive
• 18-inch wheels with Yokohama Geolandar A/T G31 all-terrain tyres
• Wireless Apple CarPlay/Android Auto
• 7x USB-C charging ports
• Ten-speaker audio system
• Automatic high-beams
• Synthetic leather seats
• Heated/ventilated front seats
• Eight-way powered adjustable driver’s seat, four-way manually adjustable passenger’s seat
• Tri-zone climate control
• Genuine leather steering wheel
• 7.0-inch TFT multifunction driver’s display
• 12.3-inch infotainment display
• Reversing camera with 360-degree view monitor
• Four front, four rear parking sensors
• LED headlights/taillights

Toyota Land Cruiser Prado Adventure adds:

• 18-inch wheels with Toyo Open Country A/T III all-terrain tyres
• Stabiliser disconnect system
• Multi-Terrain Select off-road drive modes
• Multi-Terrain Monitor
• 14-speaker JBL audio system
• Adaptive high beams
• Leather-accented seats
• 10-way powered adjustable driver’s seat, four-way powered passenger seat
• Heating/ventilation/memory front seats
• Driver’s head-up display
• Digital rear-view mirror
• 12.3-inch digital driver’s display

CarExpert’s take on the Toyota Land Cruiser Prado

This generation of Prado is brilliant. It’s very capable, drives well everywhere, looks the absolute business, and even with a more cut-down feature set in the GXL, still gives you great bang-for-buck. 

Toyota’s hybrid system does a decent job of reducing fuel consumption, though I would love to see a proper parallel hybrid here, it works quite well for the GWM Tank 300/500 and we know Toyota is the king of hybrids. The five-seater version fixes the major issue of the seven-seater, that being boot space, making this the go-to if you’ve got more things than people to take into the wops.

While newer adventurers might miss the Multi-Terrain Select drive modes and the off-road surround view monitor, they aren’t strictly necessary with the mechanical capabilities of the Prado. In fact, it’s good enough off-road (at least, from my limited experience) that you would have to really want that LC 300. Both have similar suspension set-ups, though the 300 has 235mm of ground clearance against the Prado’s 215mm. 

The more expensive Land Cruiser has a superior departure angle too, 25 degrees over 17. Are you going to notice? Probably not. But the biggest kicker is the LC 300, with its more interesting 3.3-litre turbo-diesel V6, starts at $141,990. That’s nearly $60,000 more than the Prado.