If there’s one good reason for driving through the Sierra de Almijara mountains in southern Spain, it is the stunning scenery, backgrounded by the snowcaps on the even higher Sierra Nevada towering over Granada over to the north-west.

If there’s a better reason, it has to be doing that journey in the next generation Toyota Land Cruiser, because that allows you to get right into the high rocky areas of the Almijara, where the best views lie hidden.

And, of course, all that provides a truly excellent quick test of the vehicle nameplate that has arguably driven more roads - and non-roads - than any other car in the world since Toyota built their first 4x4 51 years ago.

Land Cruiser is the most popular vehicle of choice for people who have to drive in some of the world’s toughest terrains, including the North African deserts and South African mines, the jungles of South America, and the bushlands of Australia, and it has also proven itself more capable than snow crawlers in Antarctica.

Land Cruiser stories are legion. One example: the Guinness record of the 510,000km trip in 1984 by Emil and Liliana Schmid from Switzerland, crossing 131 different countries and territories. Another: the vehicle used by an Australian mechanic who often has to drive a 2,000km round trip to help stranded truckers.

And now the vehicle which over the decades has been affectionately known by many nicknames - including Moose in the US, El Macho in Latin America, King of the Desert in China - has reached its 11th generation.

In an era when the large SUV has been targeted by many new entrants to the genre, including luxury car makers, Toyota has, it seems, lifted the Land Cruiser right up to meet the challenge of the luxury 4x4, but without losing its essential reliability, toughness, and ability to drive almost anywhere that no one could be expected to drive.

And they’ve added a few new gismos to the latest cars, designed to make them safer, more comfortable, and able to further stretch the limits of off-road driving.

The smart new body styling is clear from the pictures here, and in both exteriors and interior design, the latest Land Cruiser uses themes from the company’s very successful smaller RAV4 ‘softroader’ series. But don’t be mistaken that they’ve softened the underpinnings - the latest vehicle uses traditional body-on-frame design, because that’s the only kind that can stand up to the extreme conditions in which many Land Cruisers are worked.

The availability of a semi-active suspension system has dramatically improved the highway driving characteristics of the car, making it useful for everyday commuting without pain, and at the same time permitting optimum settings for more difficult driving conditions. It has four settings, from ‘comfort’ to ‘sport’.

Then there’s a ‘first in the world’ hill start assist control (HAC) which automatically stops the car from going backwards both on a hill-start situation or when it might even start slipping backwards while climbing a slippery slope. It is only available on Land Cruisers equipped with automatic transmissions and vehicle stability control.

On a special ‘assault course’ they set up in the Almijara, I saw this work very well (check out the picture gallery here). I also proved to myself again that a Land Cruiser without such aids can work the course just as easily, though I didn’t try stopping halfway up any of the hills on the course. My instincts are to get on with it in such situations. The latest Land Cruiser allows that at least as well as did its predecessors.

The Torsen centre differential works seamlessly to deal with most spin and slip situations, and there’s also a manually-set diff-lock to get the vehicle out of sand or mud traps.

The engine I drove in Spain was the one which will sell most in Ireland when the car eventually gets here in the first half of 2003 - an improved version of the 3-litre D-4D which surprises with its smoothness despite being only a 4-pot unit. There’s a hefty 163hp on tap, and the real secret of the car’s excellent pulling power is the 343 Nm of torque that’s available between 1600-3200rpm.

There’s also a brand-new 4-litre 249hp V6 petrol, and according to Toyota Ireland’s Steve Tormey, there will be a market for those even in Ireland, albeit a relatively small one.

Back on the road, there’s comfort in knowing that the advanced VSC system will deal with any inadvertent ‘overcooking’ coming into a bend, or in an unexpected emergency manoeuvre. It cuts in to control engine acceleration, and to apply braking to individual wheels as required to get the vehicle back under control ... or, indeed, to stop it going out of control in the first place.

From a safety perspective, the latest Land Cruiser’s chassis has been engineered to limit damage to expensive components in a collision, and also to minimise damage to any other vehicle involved. Special ‘collapsing’ inner rails in the roof side rail or pillar deform progressively if an occupant’s head hits them in a side impact, reducing head injury.

Other details - and I’ll reserve a full review until we have one to test in Irish conditions - include the availability of a third row of seats in the 5-door, a higher quality interior than we might have been used to in this nameplate, and the option of leather and electrically-operated seats.

There was time to notice one small bother, which Trish observed as well - though the Optitron instrument dials are excellent in terms of readability of the numbers, the the actual red indicator ‘wands’ weren’t bright enough in daylight. Something perhaps that could be sorted at production level?

But that very little thing aside, the first experience with this latest version of a Toyota legend with more than four million units sold has been nothing less than impressive.

And that was just the views ...