After the Land Cruiser, Toyota Works on the Lunar Cruiser

The Land Cruiser model is an iconic figure in the large Toyota family, even if it's not available here. Its reputation is that it can go absolutely everywhere, or near enough. Now its name is being used as inspiration for the moniker given a new all-terrain vehicle prototype the Japanese automaker is working on.

But don't expect to see this new model on the road, or even on land. Toyota is working with the Japanese space agency on a product designed to explore the lunar surface. The company maintains it is quite serious about the project, and its documentation even makes the claim the project aims to be helping humans live on the moon by 2040, and then, eventually, on Mars.

The prototype, which we’ve met before, now has a name. The Lunar Cruiser even has a – tentative – launch date: the late 2020s.

The design is based on the idea that people can and do eat, work, sleep and communicate with each other, safely, from inside their vehicles. And if it's possible to do it here, there’s no reason why it wouldn’t be possible to do it in space, said Takao Sato, who leads the Lunar Cruiser project at Toyota.

“We see space as an area for our once-in-a-century transformation. By going to space, we may be able to develop telecommunications and other technology that will prove valuable to human life,” he told the Associated Press.

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