 Every day of every week, on average, Americans buy more than 1200 of them. Since its debut in 1983, over 10 million have been sold worldwide--five million of those homegrown in the horse country of Kentucky. Without benefit of fleet sales or incentives or dancing girls behind the showroom glass, it's easily the best-selling car in the United States--and has been for nine of the past 10 years. The redesigned, sixth-generation version has even become something of an automotive rock star: Stories circulate of buyers chasing loaded transport trailers to the dealership in hopes of grabbing one before it's snatched up by some other lucky groupie. Maybe now those buyers will have to don helmets and shoulder pads: The new Toyota Camry is our choice for Motor Trend's 2007 Car of the Year.
 When Toyota first announced it was coming out with a full-size pickup truck to go head to head with the big boys from Ford, Chevy, and Dodge, the question arose as to whether an import could truly compete as a heavyweight. The answer is in: The new Toyota Tundra is now ready to take on any American-made pickup truck -- on all levels. Superiority? Toyota is pulling no punches by introducing one of the biggest, strongest, and most capable vehicles in the segment, as well as investing billions in a new state-of-the-art manufacturing plant in the heart of truck country-San Antonio, Texas. Significance? With Toyota looking to more than double its presence in the hotly contested half-ton marketplace, the Tundra represents one of the most highly anticipated new vehicle launches in many years -- car or truck. Value? The new Tundra offers three different powertrains (one V-6 and two V-8s), with the 5.7-liter V-8 a high-tech wonder and torque monster -- and is among the most powerful engines in any half-ton configuration. Toyota's platform has the entire segment covered with three different bed sizes, three separate wheelbases covering five different cab and bed configurations, combined with three different trim packages (Tundra Grade, SR5, and Limited) in 4x4 and 4x2 drivetrains -- 44 different truck flavors to interested buyers, from work truck to luxury touring.
 This is a helluva time to be in the truck business. Over the summer, speculators ramped gas through the $4-a-gallon barrier. Then came the Nightmare on Wall Street, the financial meltdown that froze credit and drove the vulnerable Detroit automakers to the very brink of bankruptcy. Trucks, once the engine-room of profits for the American auto industry, suddenly became toxic, and sales stalled. Here's how bad it got: Toyota shuttered the $1.3 billion plant it built in San Antonio, Texas, to manufacture the all-new Tundra, our 2008 Truck of the Year, for 90 days. relentless rise of the personal-use pickup truck in America was an entirely unexpected phenomenon that grew out of a market defined by cheap gas and CAFE. How? The first iteration of CAFE in the 1970s meant American cars, which had tougher mileage targets to meet, got worse as pickup trucks became more refined and carlike. As a result, pickups, which kept their lazy, torquey V-8s and rear drive, started being purchased as substitutes for what American cars had been, particularly with the introduction of extended-cab versions.
|
|
<< Start < Prev 31 32 33 34 35 36 Next > End >>
|
