Toyota’s Land Cruiser is never going to win a beauty contest. This is a car that trades heavily on its talents, rather than its looks, so it needs to be rather good at what it does.

The trouble is it’s competing against some very talented rivals from Land Rover – including the ubiquitous Range Rover - BMW, Mercedes, Porsche and Volvo who also happen to be rather better looking.

So let’s start with those looks because first impressions count, right?

It should be noted, first of all, that today’s Land Cruiser doesn’t look a great deal different to its predecessor. Even the dimensions have changed little with an additional 45mm in length and 10mm in width while the wheelbase remains unchanged.

The five-bar chrome grille is huge. Imagine a basking shark, but with teeth, and you’ll get the picture. Bulging wheel arches, huge running boards and chunky roof rails help emphasise the rugged, go-anywhere image.

It might not have the looks but it undoubtedly possesses the gravitas, a sort of Jack Palance for the road, and off it.

On the road it handles pretty much as you might expect Jack Palance to. It doesn’t like to be hurried. There’s a fair amount of body roll in the corners – it’s a tall, heavy car and behaves like one – and the steering lacks a little directness.

The ride can get a little fidgety on uneven surfaces but, overall, it’s a comfortable and refined machine.

Venture off-road and the Land Cruiser starts to live up to its name. It’s equipped with a low-ratio gearbox and lockable centre differential that allows it to tackle difficult terrain with the kind of ease that the new breed of crossovers can only dream about.

There’s only one engine available, a 2.8-litre four-cylinder diesel that produces 174bhp and 332lbft of torque with the automatic transmission. It’s not the quickest, nor the quietest, but it does do an admirable, if unspectacular, job of lugging the big 4x4 around.

Climbing inside the top-spec Invincible is a bit like walking into an antiques shop. The wood trim on the steering wheel and dash, while achieving its aim of giving the cabin an upmarket feel, does so with a certain amount of old world charm. I wouldn’t have been surprised to find myself dusting off centuries-old cobwebs from above the inglenook fireplace before settling down in my smoking jacket with pipe in one hand and glass of cognac in the other.

Sadly there is no fireplace, no well-worn armchair – although it should be noted that the seats are all very comfortable – and certainly no cognac, instead there’s a cluster of buttons below the multimedia system that operate the air con, which in the Invincible spec includes a blu-ray player with remote – and two air vents above it.

At the base of the centre console is a large rotary selector, switches and buttons to swap between the off-road modes.

Rear-seat passengers get their own controls for the air conditioning mounted in the back of the centre storage bin.

Bluetooth handsfree with audio streaming is standard across the range, but sat nav is only included on the Icon and above, as is a JBL premium sound system.

The seats are, as I’ve already said, comfortable but there’s perhaps not as much room as you might expect given the Land Cruiser’s dimensions. All-round visibility is excellent – the huge mirrors are a big plus – and finding a just-right driving position is easy thanks to lots of adjustment in the wheel and seats.

Invincible spec models seat seven, with the rearmost seats operated electrically, which means raising and lowering them takes a matter of seconds. They offer surprisingly spacious accommodation too, even for grown-ups.

Deploying those rear seats does eat into luggage capacity, leaving you with less room than a VW Up! so it’ll often be a choice of people or luggage, not both. In five-seat mode capacity stands at 620 litres while with the middle row folded away there’s room for that inglenook fireplace with 1,943 litres of space.

The rear door is side-hinged, which means you’ll have to give careful consideration to where you park if you’re going to need access to the boot.

The Land Cruiser ploughs its own furrow, untroubled by the passage of time. In many ways Toyota’s resistance to change is commendable and the fact that the Land Cruiser still manages to impress despite being somewhat stuck in the past simply emphasises its impressive heritage.

It isn’t the most dynamic or refined on the road – which is undoubtedly where it would spend most of its time – but it is extremely capable off it. And there’s the rub. If you’re likely to spend a large amount of your time in the rough stuff it’s hard not to recommend this car but, if like the majority of drivers in the UK the worst conditions you’ll ever face is a roadside puddle, you’d probably be better of investing your money somewhere else.

Toyota Land Cruiser Invincible 5-door

Price: £55,465

Engine: 2.8 D-4D

Transmission: 6-speed automatic

Max power: 174bhp @ 3,400rpm

Max torque: 332lbft @ 2,400rpm

Max speed: 109mph

Acceleration (0-62mph): 12.7sec

Urban: 30.7mpg

Extra urban: 44.8mpg

Combined: 38.2mpg

Emissions (CO2): 194g/km

For more information visit www.toyota.co.uk