KARACHI, Oct 23 (Focus Pakistan) - The next-generation Toyota Fortuner will make its global debut on December 1, bringing the SUV's biggest redesign in a decade and confronting Pakistani buyers with an expensive question: buy the current model or wait for its successor?
Toyota South Africa confirmed the date. The carmaker’s UAE arm teased the debut on Instagram with a single image. Neither gave away much else.
Spy photographers have filled the gap. Camouflaged prototypes have run on Thai roads since at least February.
What the new Toyota Fortuner changes
The pictures show slim LED headlights in the style of Toyota’s new ninth-generation Hilux pickup, a squarer tail and production-spec LED tail-lights. A sensor module sits in the front bumper, a sign of radar-based driver assistance.
The cabin looks set for the biggest change. Critics have long complained that the Fortuner’s interior lags rivals. One South African reviewer, Cars.co.za, put it bluntly: the cabin just doesn’t match what owners pay.
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If Indian car sites have it right, top versions get a 12.3-inch screen, digital dials, a 360-degree camera, a wireless phone pad, cooled front seats and Level 2 ADAS. Toyota has confirmed none of it.
Familiar platform and engines
Underneath, Toyota seems to have played it safe. South African and Indian outlets reckon the bones stay put, with an updated IMV ladder frame of the kind under the new Hilux. If they’re right, the posher TNGA-F base of the Land Cruiser 300 won’t make the jump.
Engines? Probably the same pair. Reports suggest Toyota keeps the 2.7-litre petrol and the 2.8 turbodiesel, and some markets hang on to the diesel’s 48-volt mild hybrid.
Toyota’s logic seems simple enough. Owners pick a Fortuner because it takes a beating. Fix the dated looks and the tired dashboard, and most of the grumbling stops.
Toyota Fortuner price in Pakistan: buy now or wait?
For Pakistan, the timing gets awkward.
Indus Motor Company (IMC), which assembles Toyotas in Karachi, ran a limited-time promotion on petrol Fortuner variants earlier this year to mark Toyota’s 35 years in the country. Local auto site Gari.pk put the promotional prices at Rs12.44 million for the Fortuner G and Rs14.94 million for the V, about Rs2.5 million below list. The offer carried a time limit, so those rates may no longer apply.
Focus Pakistan cited industry analysts who read the discount as a possible way to clear stock ahead of newer models. IMC linked it to the anniversary.
IMC has built Fortuners in Karachi since 2013. The current shape went on sale here in September 2016, and the 2.8 diesel showed up in late 2017.
On the new one, IMC hasn’t said a word in public yet.
In India, car magazines are pencilling in a 2027 showroom arrival. Toyota hasn’t put out a schedule. The petrol model sells there today from 35.11 lakh Indian rupees, ex-showroom.
That leaves Pakistani buyers with a costly decision: purchase the current Fortuner or wait for a redesigned successor with no confirmed local launch date or price.
For now, Toyota has revealed when the world will see its next Fortuner. Pakistani buyers still have no idea when they can drive one.
