Luxon was also quick to point out the benefits of the unit’s portability. “It’s very important to be able to simply plug the unit into the car or out of the car if you’re selling it. It’ll take just a few minutes to take it out and then you can put it in your new vehicle or you could sell it to a mate with a similar vehicle so you don’t lose the investment.”
And speaking of investment, Luxon told us that 4000 man hours of development time went into getting the Dtronic right – and that was just for the 3.0-litre Patrol. “The development time for the Cruiser wasn’t as difficult but the Patrol took three years to develop and it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to work out that 4000 man-hours of an electronic engineer’s time is a lot of money invested”.
In terms of fuel economy, the manufacturer isn’t making any outlandish statements, which is refreshing for a performance enhancing product: “We’re not making any radical claims about fuel economy,” says Peter Luxon. “There may be some benefits where someone is towing and maintaining a constant speed; the lack of gear changes and raising and lowering the revs will give some economy bonus but it’s the drivability that’s the big difference.”
TESTING TIME
We got to try the Dtronic in real-world conditions when Safari supplied us with a 100 Series LandCruiser fitted with the system.
