Toyota Wants To Kill A New Hilux Like Top Gear Tried And Failed 23 Years Ago
Toyota UK has teased a video showing an Elddis caravan hanging upside down from a crane above the new Hilux, a direct nod to Top Gear’s famous 2003 torture test. The clip cuts away just as the caravan drops, promising that the full video is “dropping soon.”
The old Hilux earned its indestructible reputation by surviving everything Top Gear threw at it, and now the new truck has to prove it deserves the same title.
The Iconic Torture Test That Made The Hilux A Legend
Top Gear aired its two-part Hilux torture test in 2003, after Jeremy Clarkson bought a 1988 Hilux with 190,000 miles for roughly $2,450. The plan was to keep punishing the truck until it stopped running, and it became the car show review that forever changed the Hilux’s reputation.
Clarkson drove it down a flight of steps, scraped it along buildings, and crashed it into a tree that belonged to a village in Somerset. The BBC later paid the village compensation once the episode aired.
The Hilux then spent five hours submerged in the sea, smashed through a garden shed, and took a caravan dropped on top of it. Clarkson finished his half by hitting it with a wrecking ball and setting the cabin on fire.
In the second episode, James May placed the Hilux on top of a 240-foot tower block scheduled for demolition. The truck came out of the rubble still driveable and later sat on a plinth in the Top Gear studio from 2004 to 2016. Now that battered pickup lives at the Grampian Transport Museum.
Toyota’s New Hilux Is Next In Line For The Caravan Drop
Toyota UK’s teaser opens on an old 80s red Hilux with the line, “Remember that Hilux stunt back in 2003?” A brand-new Hilux then rolls into frame with the words, “Well guess what…”
The next shot looks down on an Elddis caravan hanging upside down from a crane above the new truck, along with “We’ve done it again.” The caravan drops, but the clip cuts away before impact and signs off with a cheeky warning: “Please Hilux Responsibly.”
That tagline is also the name of Toyota’s launch campaign for the ninth-generation Hilux, which pokes fun at owners who take the truck’s toughness too literally. Dropping a caravan on its newest pickup means Toyota is happily ignoring its own advice.
Hilux fans in the comments want the full gauntlet too, with one writing, “Can’t wait for when they leave it in the sea overnight.” Another added, “Now you’re committed. Need trial by sea and fire. No second thoughts,” so the real litmus test for the Hilux would be the if it can survive being soaked in salt water overnight with modern electronics. While someone else suggested “Please Hilux Responsibly” belongs on a T-shirt.
Since only the caravan drop has been teased, we don’t expect Toyota to recreate the entire two-part test from 23 years ago. We hope it goes further, though, because the Hilux earned its invincible reputation by surviving the sea, fire, wrecking ball, and demolition back to back, and not from a single stunt.
How Top Gear Turned The Hilux Into The Invincible
Toyota UK added a new flagship Hilux Invincible to its range in July 2004, just months after the Top Gear episodes aired. In Toyota’s official announcement for the Hilux Invincible, the brand said the truck’s survival of “trial by fire, flood, tumbling tower block and deadly caravan” influenced the choice of name.
The episode turned the Hilux from a dependable work truck into a pop-culture icon known for being almost impossible to kill. Its reputation grew even further when a Hilux carried Top Gear to the North Magnetic Pole in 2007, a first for any motor vehicle.
The Hilux isn’t sold in the US today because of the chicken tax. But the new truck has to earn the Invincible name all over again, and this time Toyota is doing it on camera.
Source: Toyota UK via Instagram, Grampian Transport Museum
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