Ahead of this month’s Tokyo Motor Show, Toyota is telling us about a lot of cool new shit, like yesterday’s third-generation Century. Today we get a boxy concept car they’re calling the Tj Cruiser, which looks like the car equivalent of a bull in a china shop. In a good way, though.
The Tj Cruiser is “designed for drivers with lifestyles where work and play dovetail seamlessly,” Toyota says. The company also describes the car as a crossover between an SUV and a cargo van—the interior, indeed, can be converted to what looks like the inside of a cargo plane.
The name, in fact, has some meaning, Toyota says, even if “Tj” sounds to me like the name of a teenage dirtbag. The “T” stand for “Toolbox,” while the “j” stands for “joy.” I’m not making this up.
The interior is big enough to fit 9-foot surfboards, in addition to large bikes, according to Toyota. It also has a lot of tie-down points—ideal for holding cargo, which can fit easily through the car’s massive door openings. Just have a look:
What’s under the hood? A 2.0-liter hybrid engine, Toyota says. It will also be front-wheel and four-wheel drive. Details beyond that are a bit scarce, though you can expect to learn a bit more in a few weeks in Tokyo. No word yet on production, but Toyota’s been missing something boxy and weird since the FJ Cruiser left us.
One final note: While the car looks big, it’s actually more than three feet shorter than the new Century, and about four inches less wide, coming in at 14-feet long and a little less than six feet wide. The car is a toolbox of joy.