The Toyota Land Cruiser is no longer to be sold in the USA, and ours isn't the only country that won't have access to this new luxury off-roader. Instead, we'll be getting the Lexus LX, but who knows when? The global semiconductor chip shortage has affected both the Land Cruiser and now the LX. The last we heard was that the Land Cruiser could take a whole year to arrive, but it now appears that even this was an optimistic estimation of the severity of the delay.

According to new reports covered by Cars Guide in Australia, one of the Land Cruiser's key markets, the wait could be as long as four years. Insert expletive here.

We were expecting to hear of severe delays after Toyota announced that the parts and chip shortages would force the automaker to lose as much as 40% of its production capacity this month. The production facility that puts the Land Cruiser together is the worst affected, closing for an entire month.

This is especially troubling for Toyota because the Land Cruiser has been overwhelmingly popular, with preorders reportedly outstripping domestic production capacity by 400% - Toyota has around 20,000 orders and, before the temporary plant closures, had expected to be able to deliver just 5,000 units. Now, it's anyone's guess when things will be back to normal. Worst affected are the ZX and GR Sport trims, with these expected to now take as long as four years to arrive while other models could take two to three years.

Unfortunately, the ZX and GR Sport are the most popular, having attracted around 90% of all Japanese orders. Toyota in Australia says that "a limited number of vehicles will be in dealerships as demonstrator models nationally from early October, giving our valued customers the opportunity to experience the new LandCruiser first-hand, including through test drives as permitted."

Toyota will update its customers as more information becomes available, but the sliver of good news in all this is that the automaker expects to be able to deliver the first customer vehicles in December. So if you were one of the very first to get your order in, you may still see your new car within the next few months. If not, the wait could be agonizingly long.