Bridgestone wins future LandCruiser tyre deal

BRIDGESTONE has won a critical deal with Toyota to be the original equipment (OE) tyre supplier for a future LandCruiser release, with the Japanese partners having developed the forthcoming vehicle and tyre partnership together in the South Australian outback.

The deal is regarded by Bridgestone as the successful culmination of an effort to break Dunlop’s traditional dominance as the key OE supplier of tyres for LandCruiser models.

“Traditionally, we have not had strong OE fitment on Toyota LandCruiser, which has been dominated by Dunlop in the past,” Bridgestone Australia and New Zealand sales director Claudio Sodano told GoAuto.

“We made a really conscious decision (to try to win) OE fitment on the prestigious LandCruiser. We had our Japanese technical team come over, and we went to a rural part of South Australia to do some really aggressive off-road (testing).

“We have been really successful in winning the next LandCruiser model and getting OE fitment on that (vehicle), which was really important to us,” Mr Sodano said.

Bridgestone won an earlier deal to supply Toyota with its Dueler tyres for some variants of the 300 Series LandCruiser (in particular, the VX and Sahara), but the rugged GR Sport (plus GX and GXL) continued on the Dunlop Grandtrek.

However, while the LandCruiser Prado 250 Series launched with a trio of tyre providers, Bridgestone was not one of them.

The Prado currently ships to Australia on a mix of Dunlop Grandtrek (GX, GXL), Toyo Open Country (Altitude), and Yokohama Geolandar (VX and Kakadu).

Identifying the future LandCruiser set to wear Bridgestone rubber is not easy, but it could be the forthcoming LandCruiser hybrid, an updated version of the Prado, or more exotically, the expected ‘mini’ LandCruiser successor to the FJ Cruiser.

Given the focus on off-roading proficiency, the win could involve a Toyota-specific derivative of Bridgestone’s Dueler A/T 002 model, released in August 2024 and combining elements of highway and all-terrain tyres.

Mr Sodano explained that the Toyota deal was won off the back of a complex tender process that saw Bridgestone awarded the LandCruiser tyre transaction based on a specification pitch, backed up by real-world testing.

“We pitch what we can do (within) our development cycle and (the OEM) sets out what they want to achieve in wet braking, rolling resistance, etc. We pitch that we can achieve it, are awarded it, and then you go and work in unison to achieve those results you have essentially benchmarked,” he said.

Once the Toyota vehicle engineers and Bridgestone tyre tuning specialists had decamped to remote South Australia, it was a case of fine-tuning on the fly.

“We will have the option to provide multiple specs and tunes,” Mr Sodano explained. “We might (have made) 30-40 construction changes and retunes. The vehicle manufacturer changes the suspension and steering, and we change the tyres…always working with the OEM to get the final result.”

While Bridgestone has chased Toyota LandCruiser business for a while, the tyre firm has had more success in recent years with its key rival in the Nissan Patrol.

The Y62 Patrol generation, which is in its twilight years locally, is shod in Bridgestone Dueler 693 tyres, and Bridgestone was successful in renewing its Patrol tyre partnership for the incoming, six-cylinder Y63 model.