I saw an S580 yesterday when I was getting new rubber installed on my dd. Current S class. It’s a beautiful car. It has presence.

 

Anyone seen the movie K-9? Funny, classic Jim Belushi movie about man and dog.

This is roughly a 1983 500SE W126 with about 190hp, as you can see it's not exactly a Porsche 911 but you can clearly tell it's an indestructible German machine designed for tough, high speed driving (and that the W126 is just a brick). Look at the way the driver is flinging the wheel in the visible shots. W126 had the goods for sure. It seems pretty darn neutral and balanced, easy to get accustomed to and place and handle the car (this is what Germans are/were really good at). I would not be surprised if they did not modify anything for that jump, I doubt they did actually.

Imagine trying to pull that off in a 1983 Cadillac Sedan de Ville.

 

Very unlikely. I do like the big truck but driving it around in urban settings would be really tiresome.

I will try it but I want the best ride I can have.

I will check when I get back to it tonight

 

YMMV but LX is perfect size. It's big enough, but not gigantic.

 

This QX80 is about the same size and it would be tiring to drive in the city. Great for travel but not my thing for every day use.

 

how would you know that? You would have to live with it for a very long time to know

 

LX is an amazing size

 

If we're looking at jump scenes from films, the Defenders used in the most recent Bond movie were production vehicles and were as delivered by the factory apart from the fitment of an interior roll cage. Suspension and chassis are all stock. The initial leap was 90 feet, and the cars were 10 feet iff the ground at the peak. Needless to say, I have yet to do this with mine.

 

Very impressive!

 

One of those things you can only do once haha. BTW that W126 clip was excellent.

 

I don't agree with this. I think you can tell in 15-20 minutes of test driving and I also think if you've driven one, you've driven them all. These large SUV's are big, heavy and around town it feels like they're a chore to drive. Accelerating, braking in stop and go traffic around town. They're just not great. They're all effectively the same in that general sense of being cumbersome. We have one out of necessity but it's parked 75% of the time. Some people are bothered less by what I'm referring to, but I agree and understand what Steve is saying.

I looked at the new LX 6 weeks ago and for the price tag there is absolutely no way I'd buy that over so many other choices in the same price range. I get the love for the LC/LX being mostly a bullet proof tank, but I don't get the love for it beyond that. And if you're buying new and keeping 3 years, who needs a bullet proof tank?

 

from my stint at the toyota dealer i explicitly remember it seeming like toyota basically did everything they could to discourage leasing a land cruiser lol... there were NEVER any special programs or incentives, it was basically range rover money, or LX 570 money so naturally people went for the "better" version

unless you plan on keeping it at least a decade or more the land cruiser is a pretty tough sell, and if the person wasn't already a huge land cruiser fan to begin with it's a near impossible sell... it was also somewhat difficult to explain why it costs SO much more than a sequoia which is noticeably bigger and more spacious

 

I agree with you on this. Driving a full size SUV every day is annoying, you can constantly feel the bulk. When you jump into something 1000lbs+ lighter and a few inches lower to the ground it feels so much better, especially if you're an assertive driver.

 

omg haha so true... occasionally i'll drive my friend's 2018 4Runner and i'll instinctively start prepping to make a move between a gap of cars up ahead, when i have to remind myself oh yea this is a truck and not so good at doing this kind of thing

btw even he will occasionally talk of getting a cheap little car since it IS a chore having to use a BOF SUV for every little errand, and that's not even considering the fuel consumption

 

The 4 runner confounds me, I have had 3 in recently so I've had a chance to drive 07/13/18 model year examples and the thing that I just don't understand is how cheap the interiors are for the money, how HUGE the car drives even though actual dimensions are quite small and MUCH smaller than a Range Rover, and how freaking underpowered and fuel hungry the things are. You get all of 16-17mpg to just be horridly slow and unresponsive, heavy, no turn in/stability or tracking all the while being in a cheap interior.......for $50-70k and even the old 07 I did major work on at 160k was STILL an almost $17k car used that then screwed over the owner with massive failures.

I would view it much differently if it was 20k cheaper new and about half that used and didn't drive worse than ANY full size truck and had 100 more HP. Aka I would just buy a full size if I needed truck but this is just outright non-competitive if you have driven anything other than a 4runner in the last decade and a half that is in this size class. You can make the off road argument sure but I counter with Land Rover, VW, Jeep, and the domestic trucks.