Robins Rate Toyota Land Cruiser As The Perfect Nesting Spot

Birds raise their brood beneath 4×4’s bonnet

There’s a new kind of twitter buzz about the Land Cruiser since a pair of robins picked Toyota’s mighty 4×4 as the perfect place to raise their young. The bold birds built their nest in the engine compartment of the car and travelled more than 250 miles before they were discovered.

Dave Merchant, from Henley in Somerset, only found the stowaways when he went to check the oil in his Land Cruiser Amazon. The mother bird had been sitting on a clutch of eggs that successfully produced five chicks that are now well on the way to fledging.

Dave said: “The fact that I was driving the Land Cruiser around while the robins were nesting and that the birds hatched successfully shows what a good car this is. As soon as I saw the chicks I of course stopped driving the car and I won’t use it again until they have flown the nest.”

Dave is a great advocate for Land Cruiser performance and reliability – and now it merits as probably the world’s biggest bird box. He has covered more than 80,000 miles in his vehicle since acquiring it in 2008 and has also chosen a Land Cruiser for his son.

Robins are renowned for their fearlessness, territorial behaviour and their sometimes strange nesting choices. Although unusual, this is not the first Toyota to house a bird’s nest: last year a local newspaper in Victoria, Australia, reported on a birds nest in the engine compartment of a RAV4.