Toyota learned a rare and beautiful lesson in 2024: that a smaller, cheaper Land Cruiser could actually sell. Then, in 2026, it promptly forgot that lesson and jacked up the price. No added features. No performance upgrades. Just a fresh sticker and a shrug. Back to business as usual.

By the 2020s, Toyota had a Land-Cruiser-sized problem with its SUV lineup. It had cashed in on the recognizable nameplate to justify increasing the MSRP of its top-trim Toyota for decades. The 2021 Toyota Land Cruiser started at $85,665. Want the same thing with a Lexus badge? The LX 570 started at $87,875. Meanwhile, the similarly spacious and capable Toyota Sequoia SUV started at $50,100. The Land Cruiser had essentially priced itself to extinction. But that’s not all.

While striving for more passenger and cargo room, the J200 series Land Cruiser had grown so bloated it weighed in at over 5,800 pounds. As a result, it lost much of the nimble off-road capabilities that had made the Land Cruiser famous in the first place.

It wasn’t a huge shock when Toyota cut the Land Cruiser from its U.S. lineup for the 2022 model year. But what Toyota did next was unprecedented. Instead of trying to sell the even larger Land Cruiser J300 (a G-Wagon competitor in foreign markets), it downsized. Toyota introduced a smaller, retro-styled, off-road-capable Land Cruiser to the U.S. for 2024. It’s actually the Prado/Land Cruiser 250 in foreign markets and has more in common with the bulletproof Toyota Tacoma/4Runner chassis than the Sequoia.

Most vehicle models get larger, heavier, and more expensive with every redesign. They often grow out of their original price point, and automakers are constantly forced to invent new, smaller, and cheaper models to replace them. Few automakers are brave enough to do what Toyota did and downsize an offering. Best of all, the 2024 Land Cruiser started at $55,950. I couldn’t help but cheer Toyota on. But its newfound wisdom didn’t last.

Toyota’s Already Forgotten Its Hard-Won Lesson

By the end of 2025, the new Toyota Land Cruiser would set you back $57,200 ($56,700 MSRP, plus delivery fees, etc.). Then the automaker announced the midsize SUV’s 2026 price: with fees, you won’t be able to get into one for under $58,695.

As always, the cheapest option is the vintage-themed trim with its round headlights (the Land Cruiser 1958). Its price is up $500 (MSRP: $57,200). What additional mechanical features or even trim upgrades do you get for that? Nothing. How many years before even this midsize Land Cruiser prices itself out of existence? Something tells me we may find out.

One interesting counterpoint is that the Land Cruiser is built in Japan and shipped here. With international tariffs in flux, Toyota is unsure whether it will lose money on 2026 SUVs sold here. Yet it isn’t adding a big margin for insurance.