#ToyotaFJCruiser

Companies file trademark applications all the time to protect product names and other concepts, but the applications don’t always mean that something new is coming. That said, a recent Toyota trademark application in Japan spotted by Land Cruiser forum members has sparked heated conversation around what might be coming.

Today's UCOTD is a special 2012 Toyota FJ Cruiser. It's a Trail Teams Special Edition.

Today's UCOTD is a simple, straightforward one. This 2014 Toyota FJ Cruiser is unmodified and hasn't been taken off-road.

This feature was Toyota FJ-heavy for a bit, but we haven't had one for a while. So today we're featuring a 2007 Toyota FJ Cruiser TRD.

Yes, it's another FJ, I know we've featured at least one before, but your author has a soft spot for these quirky off-roaders.

We at TTAC hope you're enjoying this new "used car of the day" feature. Remember, it's not meant to sell the cars, just to get you guys talking about some cool cars for sale -- even if that means you mocking a pick.

And for us older Millennials, one of the cooler vehicles of our generation was the Toyota FJ Cruiser. Divisive looks aside, it was a bad-ass off-roader available with three pedals. I spent a good chunk of my 20s wanting one.

Has there ever been a better time for a Toyota Tacoma-based, offroad-oriented, style-conscious SUV? It’s 2017. Americans are fully invested in the idea of riding high. Jeep is selling 17,000 Wranglers per month. At the other end of the spectrum, Toyota just sold a record number of RAV4s: more than 43,000 in August. In between, Subaru is selling more than 38,000 crossovers monthly.

As total industry-wide auto sales fell 3 percent through the first two-thirds of 2017, SUV/crossover volume is up 6 percent.

Toyota itself is selling more than 16,000 Tacomas per month, the pickup on which a potential second-gen FJ Cruiser would likely be based. That fact alone is likely a factor that limits an FJ Cruiser rebirth. Indeed, Toyota hasn’t sold the FJ Cruiser in the United States since the 2014 model year, having reached its end just as the U.S. SUV/crossover trend really broke through. Americans now buy 14-percent more utility vehicles than cars.

But the Toyota FJ Cruiser lives on, at least for a little while longer, if only in the Japanese domestic market. This is — say it in a movie trailer voiceover pitch — the Toyota FJ Cruiser Final Edition.

Four words. That’s the extent of the details dropped by Toyota today, along with a picture that displays not quite an entire wheel. Perhaps the automaker should take a page from Fiat Chrysler Automobiles and release 397 feature-length films about each of the mystery vehicle’s components.

The four words and one picture depict the upcoming FT-4X, a Toyota concept bound for a New York Auto Show unveiling on April 12. From the few clues we have, this concept — in Toyotaland, “FT” prefixes mean “future Toyota” — should boast some measure of off-roading bona fides, possibly enough to make Jeep worried.

The departed Toyota FJ Cruiser was a vehicle of contrasts, depending on who you talked to. Too big, or not big enough. Too refined, or too often used as a grocery getter. Too retro, or not retro enough.

An homage to its long-dead predecessor, the retro SUV defined “niche vehicle,” and it sold like one too. Not in huge numbers, but in consistent ones. When Toyota phased it out of the North American market after 2014, it left a vacuum that went unnoticed by most.

Is Toyota now planning to fill that void?