Toyota Land Cruiser FJ Meridian Concept Is a Mean Looking Off-Roader

Key Points

• The Toyota FJ Cruiser returned after a 3-year hiatus with an all-new model.
• New FJ highlights customizability, featuring concept builds like Meridian, Street Cruiser, Nature Explorer, Legendary.
• Concepts serve as design inspirations, each tailored to different off-road or lifestyle preferences.

Popularity Breeds Longevity

The previous Toyota FJ Cruiser was probably one of the longest-running models ever produced by the brand. It was produced and sold from 2006 to 2022, a full 16-year production run featuring very small updates in between, yet retaining the platform’s much-loved purity throughout.

A lot of people were sad when it was killed off in 2022, but Toyota was quick to point out that an all-new model was on the horizon. A short three-year hiatus later, here we are with the all-new model now out in select regions.

Meridian Concept

One key highlight that Toyota was eager to point out about the new FJ is that it’ll be a customizable platform, just as any off-roader would need to be. To showcase this, a video has surfaced coming from Toyota Thailand, one of the first markets to get the new FJ. In it, the car is shown driving around various terrains with key features being highlighted. One of the cars shown in the video is a curious-looking Meridian Concept.

In the Meridian Concept, the scene immediately shifts from the wide-open desert to a tighter, denser jungle. It could mean this particular version of the FJ is tuned and geared for the more hardcore off-roaders. This “Go Anywhere” concept, based on looks alone, has a more purposeful stance and looks menacing despite its small proportions.

The video doesn’t specify what makes the Meridian different from the other concepts, but looking carefully through the video, we can see that there are some major changes. First are the tires, it rides on bigger, chunkier all-terrain tires, then you notice that it also has a snorkel, and a roof rack with a lightbar. It comes in black paint with some trail-themed decals, which don’t look out of place.

The More The Merrier

The Meridian Concept wasn’t the only special model in the video; there are four distinct builds. Accompanying the Meridian were the Street Cruiser, Nature Explorer, and the Legendary Concept.

Each concept seems to cater to a specific demographic: the Street Cruiser is for the modern and young crowd, the Nature Explorer is more of an overlanding model, and the Legendary is an homage model to the original FJ. As these cars are labeled as concepts, we aren’t sure if they’ll be on sale as special edition variants, but it is likely that they serve as design studies that owners could use as inspiration.