Toyota Mega Cruiser

The Toyota Mega Cruiser is a large, heavy-duty four wheel drive vehicle introduced by Toyota in 1995. The largest 4WD ever built by Toyota, it resembled the Hummer H1, and like the Hummer, was designed primarily for military use with the Mega Cruiser seeing duty as infantry transport, a light prime mover for heavy mortars, and mobile Surface-to-air missiles in the Japan Self Defense Forces. The military version as the BXD10, and the civilian version is known as a BXD20. Civilian uses incurred expensive taxes imposed by the Japanese government for dimension regulations and annual road tax obligations. It was available in Japan only at Toyota Store locations.

Exclusively sold in Japan, the Mega Cruiser also was used by prefectural police and fire/rescue departments, and a limited number were sold to civilians. This vehicle was intended to test designs that would eventually make their way into mass-produced Toyota SUVs (like the Land Cruiser), but was financially unsuccessful for Toyota.

The Mega Cruiser featured a 4.1 L turbodiesel I4 engine. The engine focused on producing high amounts of torque at low revs. The SUV featured front, center, and rear differential locks, as well as four wheel steering.