Toyota's forgotten SUV: New $50K LandCruiser FJ is expected soon and could it be the Toyota Fortuner Junior to undercut the big-selling Ford Everest and Isuzu MU-X?

From Toyota’s perspective, with the excitement of the completely redesigned Prado building up to fever pitch, does the conceptually-similar Fortuner still have a future in Australia?

And what of the rumoured low-cost LandCruiser FJ? Is this the new Fortuner after all? Or maybe the Fortuner Junior?

Toyota Motor Company Australia (TMCA) Vice President Sales, Marketing and Franchise Operations, Sean Hanley, was cautious with his responses when asked about the future of Fortuner.

“(Fortuner) is filling a gap,” he told CarsGuide after a pause.

“There's a lot of demand out there. It's not the biggest market segment for Toyota. But we're certainly continuing with that marque. We bring (Fortuner) in from Thailand, where we source our HiLux. So, it's an important imported car. It's important to our Thai organisation. So, it's still right, it's just doing its bit.”

And bit is the operative word. Up to the end of August, VFACTS sales data shows the body-on-frame two and three-row 4WD wagon has remained steady at 2062 units, compared to 15,711, 12,911 and 5333 for the Ford Everest, Isuzu MU-X and Mitsubishi Pajero Sport, respectively.

This makes the Fortuner an outlier in Toyota’s otherwise formidable SUV onslaught (slow-selling bZ4x EV aside). So, with the new Prado coming is its future in jeopardy, or will another version arrive once the donor vehicle – the next-gen HiLux ute – is released sometime from next year?

“Well, there are no plans to drop it at all,” Hanley said. “So, at this stage, we keep going. Okay, so we could expect the car to evolve with, yeah. I mean, hopefully we can. That's the plan to evolve, with HiLux. So yeah.

“There's a definite market there for Fortuner. It's a specialised little market, but it exists.”

This answer can allude to any existing or coming Toyota SUV, actual or speculated, including reports out of Japan about the highly-speculated low-cost “LandCruiser FJ” slotting in at around or under $50,000 as Toyota’s leftfield salvo against Everest, MU-X and Pajero Sport.

It’s also worth remembering the LandCruiser FJ – a name that has recently been trademarked in Australia – is said to employ a variation of the same Toyota New Global Architecture – Frame (TNGA-F) as the larger and costlier LandCruiser 250/Prado and 300, as well as the new North American-market Tacoma, its 4Runner 4WD wagon offshoot and… the next-gen HiLux. You know, the HiLux that has long been the Fortuner’s donor vehicle….

So, could the Fortuner morph into the LandCruiser FJ?

“There is no plan, no plan at all, to bring that vehicle to Australia,” Hanley said.

“Even though it's been trademarked for the name (in Australia). Well, we trademark a lot of cars, you know, and some may come into consideration. Some might… you never say never, but there's no immediate plan to bring that car to market in Australia.”

That said, things could change, as Hanley himself reminded us.

“We've had FJ before in its other guise, but yeah, potentially," he said. "I mean, you never say never, because you don't know what the market will do in five years’ time, or in three years’ time.”

Intriguing.

So, a low-cost 4WD wagon of sorts is definitely coming. Whatever that ends up being, it won’t be like the Fortuner we know today. Not with Everest sales outstripping it by 662 per cent.

Toyota is too canny for that.