Land Cruiser Built by Toyota’s New Accessories Arm Is Something Else

Toyota Customizing & Development Co., Ltd. (TCD) is a sub-company of Toyota that’s “engaged in the fields of accessories and installation, vehicle conversion, and motorsports.” The TRD brand you might know is under its umbrella, as well as another one less familiar to Americans: Modellista. The latter trotted out this preposterously decorated Land Crusier at SEMA to gauge U.S. market interest and, uh, I’m a little scared of it.

The Modellista Overland Vision Concept looks like a Land Crusier that was assimilated by the Borg. It’s bristling with so many incongruous shapes and colors that when I first saw it I thought we were looking at a parody, but no, a press release confirms that this outlandish creation is real. Well, in concept form at least.

“This vehicle has a mission to explore the potential of MODELLISTA brand at U.S. market,” the release reports, “and the decision will depend on reaction at the SEMA, but we’re planning to incorporate these design elements to our lineup for U.S. in the future.”

I love the idea of more customization options for cool Toyotas and the angel on my shoulder is telling me to respect all builds. But as far as my reaction to this particular loadout of accessories? I think we should go ahead and shunt this truck into a shipping container on a boat bound back for Japan… and maybe dump it into the Pacific on the way. Then, at least, once it hits a few thousand feet below sea level the local anglerfish will be happy they aren’t the ugliest things in their neighborhood anymore.

The light tubes across the hood and roof rack are creative, I’ll give them that one. I like that idea, though I’m not crazy about the execution. The truck looks like a knock-off GI Joe toy you’d see at Walgreens on that weird toy shelf they have between CD players and as-seen-on-TV trinkets for old people.

Suffice it to say—this concept is not for me. However, Modellista’s current real-life offerings are a lot classier. The brand sells fairly nice looking aero kits for the Prius, Venza, RAV4, and non-GR Corolla hatchback. The Lexus LX, RX, and NX are similarly supported. I did drop one of my contacts at Toyota a note to try and get in touch with Modellista directly but haven’t had success yet.

Modellista lists two U.S. distributors: MKS Engineering, Inc. and Tien USA, Inc., both based in California. Its parts are also apparently available through certain California Toyota and Lexus dealers, plus two Toyota dealers near Topeka, Kansas, and Omaha, Nebraska, of all places.

I’m not going to lie; I’d never heard of Modellista until this morning when the big-bruiser Crusier got dropped into my feed. It seems they’ve been operating in the U.S. since June, but this Land Cruiser is supposed to be the market-recon hype-stoker to get our attention. Well, we’re sure as heck aware of its existence now. I’m looking forward to the comment section on this one—bring me some good takes, folks.

Are you an angry-eyes Jeep guy who loves this thing but are too scared to admit it in the comments? Email the author at andrew.collins@thedrive.com.