I have a friend and he likes lots of interesting vehicles. He’s fortunate to have the means to own a number of cars, and he recently shot me a note telling me he was going to look at something quite rare. I assumed it would be some sort of forbidden fruit sports car that I’d never see here in the States… but I was very wrong.
You see my friend went and found himself a Toyota Mega Cruiser.


If you don’t know what you’re looking at, first off how the hell did you find this site. Secondly, prepare to get schooled. In the mid 90’s up through the early 00’s, Toyota wanted to create a vehicle very similar to our own Hummer H1. The Mega Cruiser was born in 1995 and it was only sold in Japan.
The idea was to put most of them into the hands of folks wearing police uniforms, fire and rescue uniforms, and the military as well. A few were sold to civilians, and those were designated BXD20 while the military variants are called BXD10.
No one calls them that though, as it’s impossible not to say TOYOTA MEGA CRUISER and not smile.

My friend, who lives in Europe and not Japan, came across the listing for a Mega Cruiser and he trekked out to go give it a look. Here’s the email he sent me after taking ti for a spin.

Long story short: it’s a Humvee, but better in every way.

Except it’s still slow as shit.

First impressive point: steering in the back. If it doesn’t have a better turning radius than my car, it’s close. Size doesn’t matter (hehe).

Second impressive point: comfort / actual fucking space. Both front seats actually have leg and arm space. 

Yes, there is empty space in the middle, but unlike the Hummer’s central console fuckfest, it’s actually lower and flat – like a central picnic table. 

The only thing in the way is the small JDM radio (below 90MHz only, so who cares / just-strap-a-bluetooth-speaker-to-the-roll-cage-#JDM).

And the aircon works magnificently.

Third impressive point: quality. No rattles, no noises. 

The passenger and driver (like 4 feet apart) can speak in normal voices with all the windows down, doing 60mph. 

The car is smooth and surprisingly comfy (considering it’s a war vehicle) in town and on the highway. The Mega Cruiser just smooths out everything in it’s way – in addition to it’s width, it’s the closest thing to driving a boat on land.

The car is unfortunately quite slow: it’ll do 75mph, but it’ll get annoyed and the knobby winter run-flat tires will vibrate (there are knobby summer run-flat tires but the winter ones work in snow and last 15k miles anyway, plus you have to import a whole new set…). If you stick to 60mph, you’ll cruise just fine.

The engine is super torquey. The 4-speed auto will sometimes scream the engine awake for a gear shift. It’s pretty weird, but mostly funny. (*continuous humming* *2 seconds of violent struggle for existence* *continuous humming*)

Finally, the car is larger than some Italian houses up my road. About 16ft long, over 7ft wide (*RCR voice*: GIRTH) and 7.5ft tall with the roll cage (6.5ft if you unbolt it). On the up-side, you can reasonably fit 6 fat Florida people and a full-size jetski in the back. Comfortably. Although size remains the largest downside to owning this car in Europe.

I’m thinking of selling the 235 and buying this. I was really impressed by the car, and I’m going back to see it next week / make a deal with the owner.

Now I don’t know if he did in fact sell the aforementioned 235… but I do know that he did in fact buy a freaking Toyota Mega Cruiser.
I need to get over to Europe and drive this thing…