Médecins Sans Frontières chooses unstoppable Land Cruiser

MSF Land Cruiser at Toyota

For the past few years, Toyota Motor Europe employees raised money for various charities during the annual 20km of Brussels marathon. We look back at one of those charities, Médecins Sans Frontières. Click through to read more.

After 231,000 unstoppable kilometres in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and now back at the Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) Training and Innovation Centre in Brussels, Toyota Motor Europe (TME) invited the MSF to show our employees where their hard earned sponsorship money went.

Speaking to TME members Robin Vincent-Smith (MSF’s Logistics Training & Information Officer) told us that the Toyota Land Cruiser HZJ-70 series is MSF vehicle of choice: “it is truly unbreakable, when you are out in the bush you need a vehicle that you can totally rely on.”

MSF talks benefits of Land Cruiser

The vehicle Robin bought to show us is a pretty special one, Robin explained that normally after 150,000 km in the bush MSF donate the Land Cruisers to local charities such as the Red Cross, adding: “some are still going strong after 500,000 km.” The Land Cruiser (pictured) spent 130,000 km in the bush and then a further 100,000 km in the DRC’s capital Kinshasa (roughly treble this mileage to understand the wear and tear on normal European roads!).

Now back in Brussels this 70 series has been converted into a field ambulance as part of a research and development project and is now used for training MSF staff in Fleet and Garage Management.

Robin explained that the learning points and specifications from the conversion here in Brussels have been sent to Sierra Leone where three Land Cruisers were converted at field level by MSF.

Conversions have also been made on brand new Land Cruisers in Brussels which were then put into action in Burundi, Haiti and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Gallery: