US Special Forces Purchasing Toyota Land Cruiser, Hilux, Ford Ranger

The United States Special Operations Command has accepted an offer with the Battelle Memorial Institute, worth as much as $170 million over five years to take off-the-shelf Toyota Land Cruisers, Hilux pickups, and Ford Ranger pickups and fit them with armor, heavy-duty suspension elements, updated brakes, run-flat tires, brand-new wheels, and advanced interactions and observation devices.

The overall concept is to construct a truck with inconspicuous appearance to protect and enable communications between troops while blending into traffic in possibly hostile nations. To be frank, it’s a pretty smart way of assisting SpecOps soldiers move about without drawing interest.

As per Military Aerospace, Battelle is going to provide “all materials, devices, hard tooling, workers, and facilities essential to make, fabricate, incorporate, produce, and test the up-armored trucks and SUVs with Special Operations communications gear aboard”. That makes it seem like a lot of the work is going to run out the armed force’s hands.

The agreement is for 556 automobiles, over two-thirds of which Battelle would fit with armor. Primarily, USA is interested in the ultra-rugged 70 Series Land Cruiser, instead of the cushier model Toyota markets to American customers.