On October 13th Toyota flew myself and 3 other automotive web geeks out to Gray Rock ORV Park in Mount Olive, Alabama for an all expense paid weekend of "trail testing" the New FJ Cruiser. What I thought was going to be a few hours of dusty park trails and a spot or two of mud with a product/sales pitch 'look at our newest pavement bound family transport', turned out to be one hell of a day of some pretty intense rock crawling and river fording that made even the most hard core off roader stop and say "WTF!?" when they saw us coming.
Don't let the current fashion of road going SUV's and 30" bling lead you into thinking that this one is yet another poser truck to add to the pile. In stock trim this ute is capable (read: ridiculously capable) of some pretty serious shit, as were some of its oldest ancestors. The last Land Cruiser and its Lexus brethren ended up as fairly plush trucks and this FJ is no different on pavement. Its interior reeks of that unmistakable space-age Scion-esque design. And even on its 265/75/16 rock ready BFGoodrich All Terrain T/A tires it drives and shifts like a mini-van on glass rails with little to no road noise.
Though the new FJ is not without flaw. Its rearward views over both shoulders and straight back with the high tailgate-mounted spare tire are not terrible but they do at times leave the driver a bit blinder than desirable. It seems like a dilemma you could easily get accustomed to after a few days logged behind the wheel. The seat belt pretensioners also seem to lock on even the slightest angle, which is what they're supposed to do. This unfortunately leaves you precariously unsecured upon reentry should you need to temporarily unbelt off the beaten path to see the trail ahead. Finally, (I will quote
Davey G. on this one) "the rear area is devoid of oh-shit bars. And given that the FJ is capable of some serious oh-shitness, that seems like a serious omission." ...I would have to agree 100%.
Once truly off road the FJ is a magnificent beast. Ours were modified with only an ARB bull bar, integrated Warn winch, beefy BFG tires and custom skid plates. We were also outfitted with Toyota OEM option rock rails and TRD wheels and exhaust. The 'A-Trac', Active Traction control is excellent at keeping the power at all four wheels in nearly every situation and when/if it finally slips, the FJ's optional rear locker, which we engaged only once, is a console mounted button click away. With out modification the FJ is capable of stepping one wheel atop obstacles about -2 ft. in height while keeping the other three firmly planted. We were sure to carefully test the articulation on several occasions leaving us with some spectacular photo ops and, at times, the FJ in a pose that resembled a dog whizzing, leg proudly lifted high in the air.
Throughout the day we drew quite the crowd of on lookers as our little stock(ish) FJ bounced its way through The facilities at Gray Rock ORV Park. With trails being rated 1-5, 5 typically requiring the use of heavily modded rigs, and our Toyota appointed professional trail guides spotting us over some pretty treacherous level 4 terrain, it was like kindergarten recess on the jungle gym ...and the little guy was ruling the mountain that afternoon.
Crapmry
I'd love to do some off-roading sometime. 
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