They look like stormtroopers, although the military analogy is misplaced. Endless ranks, tiers and rows of Toyotas, each and every one a gleaming, pristine white. But these, although tucked away in a secret underground bunker, are armed only with implacable reliability and fearsome durability.
That white Land Cruiser you saw on the news last night? Chances are it came through here. The back of shot cars seen in every report from war zones and aid programmes to disaster relief and third world development projects? At one time they probably called this home. Around 650 vehicles – more specifically 650 white Toyotas – leave here every month destined for global hotspots. Welcome to Toyota Gibraltar Stockholdings (TGS), the world’s most remarkable car dealership.
“We don’t really think of them as cars,” TGS co-chief executive Jonathan Gourlay tells me. “We’re just giving our customers a tool that does a job, whether that’s feeding children or delivering medicines.” You might think, like me, that the 70 Series Land Cruiser is utterly cool and want one very badly, but cool plays no role here – this is transport at its most fundamental. Simplicity, capability and reliability overrule everything. “If you look back 25 years, there were a few players in this market,” Gourlay continues. “There was Land Rover, there was Nissan and Mitsubishi, but gradually they’ve focused on building what I’d call ‘first world’ vehicles for Europe and North America. But Toyota still builds a 4.2-litre non-turbo diesel. You can’t register a new one in Europe because of its emissions, but it doesn’t go wrong and any mechanic can fix it in the field because there’s no electronics around it. You don’t need diagnostic tools, you just need to know how an engine works.”
Photography: Mark Riccioni
Economies of scale matter at every level of this story. Toyota can justify building simple, tough cars such as the 70 Series as long as a market exists (the UN alone doesn’t prop up this 40-year-old design – Australian outback farmers and African safari tours take their share). When others cleared out, it increased Toyota’s footprint. And it’s the same for Toyota Gib, as it’s fondly known. It’s been in this market for over 30 years, used to have rivals. But over time this one dealership at the mouth
