Andrew Hamilton joins a group of European scribes in the rutted ways of Costa Rica, putting the latest Land Cruiser to the tests
On the face of it, some might have judged the whole exercise as politically incorrect. There we were, a party of 50 European motor journalists from Iceland to Hungary and places in between, searching out the ecological wilderness that is the tropical rain forest of Costa Rica in central America, officially known as the Toyota Cloud Forest Trail.
Our steeds for the odyssey were 25 huge Toyota Land Cruisers and we were to clock up over 700 kilometres in three days in these big endearing SUV brutes.
It goes without saying that much of the driving was slow, low gear, off-road stuff making a mere 10 kilometres feel like an infinity. Getting to know this inhospitable terrain was Toyota's idea: the company has an operation like this in challenging locations every couple of years. We last took part in the desert sands of Tunisia. This time around, we substituted lots and lots of Sahara sand with mud and water and boulders - and rivers with and without flood.
The Land Cruiser has just had a small but significant makeover since the current range was launched nearly two years ago. The Costa Rican adventure was one way of putting it to the test.
The 3-litre D-4D power mill has been given an upgrade with second generation common rail technology. There's a tad more bhp, up to 167 but more important is the maximum torque of 410 Nm, allowing Toyota to claim that it's the "torquiest" four-cylinder on the market. The torque is actually up 20 per cent and the 410 Nm comes in between 1,800 and 2,600 rpm.
Other benefits are a new lightweight six-speed manual transmission that reduces the 0-62mph time to just over 11 seconds, while the automatic box is now available with five speeds, being previously four.
Driving on the wild side of Costa Rica didn't disturb the composure of any of our Cruisers. Problems were confined to a few punctures.
Nevertheless, there were hairy moments, caused by us drivers rather than the vehicles. Crossing narrow bridges mired in muck and water after a rainstorm called for a high degree of driver precision.
The Cruiser has a wide footprint and, even with the assurance of four-wheel-drive, a mild slither was enough to provoke a tumble into the torrents below.
We tried abiding by the instruction of our our affable Swedish team leader to keep the vehicle in front always in view. We were following three Icelanders who know a thing or two about off-roading but the dust storm created by their spirited progress obscured monstrous gullies and track dips. Luckily we didn't have any falling-down experiences.
The general clamour to restrict SUVs doesn't have much relevance in Costa Rica where 4x4s, both ancient and modern, provide essential mobility over tracks that look impassable. Most are Japanese and we all thought there was a subliminal message in Toyota's choice in bringing us to the "Rich Coast", the literal translation of the country's Spanish name.
Lots of elderly Land Cruisers were to be seen everywhere, along with other familiar Toyota life. It turns out that this obscure corner of the world is the Japanese car-maker's fourth oldest export territory - Toyota enjoys a 31 per cent share of a new market of 16,000 units. Actually it's better than that because Toyota's Daihatsu takes another six per cent.
Both marques are handled by the same importer whose president, Javier Quiros, told us his father started the company in 1957. "There were two other people - my mother's sister and a mechanic. Our first vehicles sold were two Land Cruisers. Now, with a Costa Rican car park of 340,000 vehicles including SUVs, Toyota accounts for 82,000.
Of seven dealerships, six are owned by the importing company. It's clearly a healthy business looking after the elderly, either in nursing homes or on the road: Quiros added that his operation sold around $24 million worth of spare parts every year.
Costa Rica was named by Christopher Columbus in 1502, so impressed was he by golden jewellery of the native people and their stories of gold and gold mines. There's no mineral wealth today: the country's wealth is its plant and wildlife and a diversified topography of forests, mountains, rivers, swamps and grasslands.
Sadly the wildlife completely ignored the Toyota Cloud Forest Trail: no snakes, no monkeys and no exotic birds gave us a second glance. We missed out too on the active Arenal volcano, in a "big sleep" from 1500 until 1968 when it violently erupted killing 80 people and destroying two villages. Arenal's fiery furnace was smothered in mist and rain and there was nothing to see. The descent from the elevated viewing area along a torturously twisting and muddy track was certainly one of the trail's driving highlights, even without volcanic theatre.
Normal driving on Costa Rica's pot-holed roads can be a tense business, what with trucks, pick-ups, scooters and cycles all scrambling for space.
The road chaos belies the fact that it's a stable democracy in a volatile region. There's no army and, apart from being a world producer of bananas and pineapples, a major income source is eco-tourism. The national airline with two turbo-prop Twin Otters emphasises the eco-credentials; it's called Nature Air!
The Land Cruiser incredibly is now in its 11th generation. It's 53 years old and more than four million have sold worldwide. Nearly 13,000 have gone on Irish roads since 1980, mostly in the workhorse commercial form.
Back in Dublin for the Christmas shopping, we spied a new Land Cruiser fulfilling another tough chore - being piled high with parcels by a woman with two children!