Tacoma shares design DNA of Toyota’s ‘Four Brothers’ body-on-frame trucks
WAIMEA, Hawaii — As the world on the internet expose of the redesigned 2024 Toyota Tacoma wound down at a posh seaside tropical island vacation resort in this article, right after the hearth dancers experienced departed the volcano-themed phase, Kevin Hunter sat by yourself, just about unnoticed, in the driver’s seat of a white Tacoma with the doorway open up.
For a several minutes, though journalists and visitors just toes absent mostly dismissed him, the president of Toyota Motor North America’s Calty style studio enable his arms glide throughout the much improved interior contours of what is simply just one of Toyota’s most significant merchandise.
His style groups in California and Michigan experienced been doing the job on the Tacoma for a lot more than a few a long time, and this was an early option to contact and come to feel what experienced beforehand existed only in a electronic entire world. He was not likely to enable the instant move, in particular specified the scope of a venture that not only afflicted Toyota’s 3rd-bestselling nameplate in the United States, but its complete overall body-on-body lineup.
The 2024 Tacoma, unveiled in this article Might 19, is the 3rd of 4 Toyota vans to shift on to the automaker’s global F1 body-on-frame platform, adhering to the Tundra complete-measurement pickup in 2021 and Sequoia complete-measurement SUV in 2022. But the Tacoma is the undisputed king of what Toyota phone calls its “4 Brothers,” outselling the two complete-sizers and the Tacoma-primarily based 4Runner SUV merged previous yr, and their sequential redesign on to a new system — the redesigned 4Runner will come in 2024 — is a initial.
“When we began doing the job on Tundra, we realized Tacoma was coming. It was a wonderful option for us to kind of just reset anything,” Hunter advised Automotive Information. “We have seriously hardly ever been equipped to style the North American vans in sequence like that with an all new system jointly. So we assumed, this is a wonderful option to appear at our household id — our North American truck DNA — and what we want it to be.”
When the Tacoma starts arriving at North American dealerships this yr, it will share distinct styling cues and features with the greater Tundra, together with a 4-cylinder-primarily based edition of the Tundra’s optional i-Drive Max hybrid powertrain. The similarities are purposeful, Hunter claimed.
“Tundra established the tone for that in the condition language and in the style. The types of sorts that we are making use of. We coined the phrase ‘interlocking shapes’ — interlocking symbolizes energy — and we desired that to arrive throughout in the vans,” he claimed, “so that when anyone seems at it, essentially it seems powerful. It is powerful and it seems powerful. Anything we did was seriously from the place of check out of its functionality, which was likely to be wonderful.”
Toyota manufacturer head David Christ claimed supplier enter was instrumental in aiding craft the redesigned Tacoma, via the products council of the Toyota Nationwide Sellers Advisory Council.
“Sellers have been quite included, and we have products counsel that we use to get responses on our products selections,” Christ claimed. “All those sellers … are not only wonderful automobile sellers but also have a awareness and a enthusiasm about products. So we bundled them in the procedure of creating and engineering the truck, and we believe we strike on all of the asks for the section.”
1 of individuals asks from sellers and shoppers, Hunter claimed, was for a elementary adjust in the cabin.
Hunter claimed in purchaser and supplier responses from the 3rd-era Tacoma, “just one of the essential locations we seemed at was the seating placement the hip-to-heel of that truck was … a very little little bit missing. If you had been a tall person finding into that truck and making use of it, it offered a several problems, so we seriously desired to resolve that trouble and get a right seating placement.”
Hunter claimed designers elevated the seating placement, which expected lifting the roofline a bit to give the Tacoma suitable headroom.
“Entry/egress ought to be effortless on a truck,” Hunter claimed. “It should not be a laborious activity to get in and out of your truck, so we seriously desired to just make it quite effortless to use — handy, basic.
“They were not seeking for a new truck/automobile, or a new thought of a truck,” Hunter claimed of supplier asks in the style section. “In its place, they claimed, ‘Give me a rugged truck that is what I require.’ So we seriously, seriously took that to coronary heart.”
Hunter claimed the new Tacoma is a “pure engage in, utility off-highway, rugged products,” derived from the preceding era, “but we experienced to modernize it so it felt like a new products.”
For the reason that the Tacoma is exceptional to North The usa, Hunter claimed designers did not have to stress about restrictions from other marketplaces.
“Let us appear at who our purchaser is, and immediate [the design] squarely at them,” he claimed, differentiating it from the Toyota Hilux, a compact pickup bought in the relaxation of the entire world. “You can not get way too rugged with the style of the Tacoma, so we seriously took that to coronary heart. But the Hilux is a various truck in a various sector, and it has various requirements.”
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