SEMA 2016: Toyota unveils 354km/h LandCruiser

The “world’s fastest SUV” made its grand entrance at the SEMA show in Las Vegas this week and what’s hiding under its bonnet could “leave most sports cars in the dust.”

This heavily modified Toyota LandCruiser concept wields a mighty 5.7-litre Toyota V8, ripped straight from a Lexus LX570, and a boosted twin-turbo setup.

It may fairly look innocent on the outside, but motorsports technical centre manager Chuck Wade claims “every single system and component has been touched,” adding “the trick is getting the body back onto the heavily modified frame.”

The boosted V8 produces a massive 1500kW, enough for a claimed 354km/h top speed, smashing the Bentley Bentayga’s current off-roader record speed of 301km/h.

To add to the madness, “volleyball sized” Garrett turbochargers flank each cylinder bank of the engine and breath directly through inlets in the aerodynamic hood, and the whole thing is plugged into an ATI transmission.

While the nitty gritty of the engine mods has not yet been released, the level of modification required for the standard output of 270kW to be more than quintupled has to be extensive, not to mention expensive.

And that’s without taking into consideration the chassis modifications required to make this behemoth capable of Ferrari F12-matching speed. Despite its promise, Toyota Motor Sales national engagement marketing manager Steve Appelbaum sees the Land Speed Cruiser as more of an engineering feat than the way forward.

“With the Land Speed Cruiser, we are breaking all the normal conventions of what an SUV should be” Applebaum said.

Representing the extreme side of motoring, this monster in disguise will be the ultimate goal for speed demons with an affinity for SUVs and precision engineering.