Chief Justice Martha Koome was driven to the Madaraka Day celebrations in Embu County in a stunning state of art Toyota Land Cruiser 300 GR Sport. The 2022 Toyota Land Cruiser 300 GR Sport costs up to Sh20 million $147,364.
Years after her predecessor, Justice David Maraga, bemoaned his inability to obtain a new taxpayer-funded car despite requests, the car represents a change in the CJ’s office’s fortunes.
It’s no wonder Koome’s spanking new SUV became the talk of the Madaraka Day celebrations which were hoping President William Ruto would use to address the high cost of living only for him to insist that his widely criticised tax plan was still on.
“Tell me why a CJ of a poor third-world country where millions of kids sleep at night without food, with 1.5 million cases backlog, where it makes 10-15 yrs to hear a case and 6-12 months to deliver judgment will spend $500,000 to buy her 4th official car. MADNESS!” remarked senior council Ahmednassir Abdullahi about Koome’s new machine.
What are the features of the 2022 Toyota Landcruiser 300 GR Sport?
Politics aside, the Standard features in the GR Sport include a 12.3-inch colour touchscreen display with Apple CarPlay, Android Auto and sat nav, 4-zone auto climate control, AEB, Lane Trace Assist with steering wheel vibration, Toyota’s Electronic-Kinetic Dynamic Suspension System (E-KDSS), 18-inch black alloy wheels, as well as front, rear and centre diff-locks.
It also has a raft of other features such as heated steering wheel, heated/ventilated and powered seats, cool box centre console, sunroof, soft-touch surfaces everywhere, wireless charging pad, second-row entertainment screens, 14-speaker audio, and more.
The GR Sport is 4995mm long, 1990mm wide and 1950mm high. It has a listed kerb weight of 2630kg.
In grand Cruiser tradition this is a big unit but the GR Sport is pretty easy on the eyes and certainly has a real adventurous feel to its appearance.
It stakes its claim from the front with an eye-catching all-caps ‘TOYOTA’ badge on the grille, then black treatments everywhere, black alloy wheels, blacked-out ‘Land Cruiser’ on the tailgate, and then GR branding scattered about inside and out to make sure that no one ever forgets which variant this is.
The Cruiser sits atop a new separate chassis and has a lower centre of gravity, a higher listed ground clearance (235mm), and a wider wheel track – and any of these visible elements add to the 300 Series’ solid presence.
The 300 Series range has a 3.3L V6 twin-turbo diesel engine – producing maximum outputs of 227kW at 4000rpm and 700Nm at 1600-2600rpm – and it has a 10-speed torque converter automatic transmission with manual shift mode.
It has a full-time, dual-range 4WD system – with high- and low-range 4WD – and it has front, rear and centre diff locks.
The 300 Series’ V6 replaces the 200 Series’ much-loved 4.5-litre V8 and numerous concerns have been expressed about this change, in terms of a perceived or anticipated detriment to performance with the move to a smaller capacity engine. Odd that this kind of mentality remains, in this day and age.
The LandCruiser has always made a great off-road touring platform – due in some part at least to its practicality and functionality – and that reputation’s unlikely to change with the 300 Series.
However, the one-piece tailgate has replaced the split and barn-door tailgates and the improvised picnic table/work bench/standing office desk/cards table that was the split tailgate will be sorely missed.
The GR Sport is a five-seater so the rear cargo area is your load space and cargo volume there is a listed as 1131 litres. On our test we barely registered in the packing stakes with an onboard load in the rear of only a set of four Maxtrax in a carry bag, a vehicle-recovery kit, a first-aid kit, an air compressor, and some tools. Suffice to say, there’s plenty of space to work with back there.
The rear cargo area has a 220V/100W inverter and four tie-down points.
The rest of the cabin is a usable and functional space.
Second-row passengers get heated and ventilated seats, a fold-down arm-rest with cup-holders, as well as two USB-C charge points (in the rear of the centre console), a 12-volt power socket and directional air vents.
Verdict
The LC300 GR Sport is a large luxury 4WD with real-world 4WD capability – and it has few serious rivals – perhaps the Nissan Patrol or the latest Land Rover Defender.
Toyota has finessed its successful LandCruiser formula, and simply made the 300 better, more efficient, more capable and even easier to drive than any Cruiser before it.
This is one of the best – if not the best – of the contemporary large SUV mob.
