Land Cruiser

Make
Toyota
Segment
SUV

Welcome to another edition of cars we'd like to own but can't have. This latest example is brought to you buy the land down under, where the distances are long and everything in between point A and point B wants to kill you.

What we have here is a pickup truck, based on the all-new Toyota Land Cruiser 300. The Land Cruiser hasn't been officially ruled out for America, but we'll likely never see one of these. It was designed and created by an Australian firm called Creative Conversions.

It takes one Land Cruiser, removes the rear end, and converts what remains into a pickup truck. There will be three model options to choose from, and the one you see here is obviously a chassis cab.

"The Toyota brand is built to last, created to perform, and designed for life. Combining this with our extensive experience, we believe we have turned the LC 300 into the ultimate touring, towing, and/or work vehicle," Creative Conversions posted on its Facebook page.

To create this conversion, it spent roughly $1.5 million, which included purchasing three brand-new Land Cruisers, 15,000 man hours, loads of 3D rendering, and multiple chassis and axle upgrades to ensure it can still carry a load.

Creative Conversions has not revealed which models it will offer, but looking at its previous offerings based on the Land Cruiser 200, it will likely be a basic load bed, a camper, or a chassis cab so that the owner can do whatever.

You might be wondering why? To understand the Land Cruiser pickup, you first need to understand Australian distance measurements. The average American would refer to 1,000 miles as far. In Australia, that's just around the corner, mate. In the Outback, it's not unheard of to make a 500-mile round trip just to buy some milk. Their farms are so big that pickups are useless for patrolling, so they use helicopters instead.

If you will be covering vast distances in a pickup, why punish yourself with something as agricultural as a Hilux? Ditch the leaf springs and get a Land Cruiser instead.

Creative Conversions does not provide a price for the conversion, but its price list estimator gives some indication. Converting the old 200 to a Crew Cab with an extended wheelbase costs roughly $25,000, not including the donor car or the load bed/camper.