Toyota Tundra

[!!!TED!!!]

Here are some pictures of the new Toyota Tundra from the Barrie Auto Show in Ontario, taken by Polish_Kris.

Big and brutish in person. Ugly grille. Blends in well with other newer Toyotas.

[mustang84]

Everytime I see the radio / HVAC knobs or whatever those are, they just scream Playskool.

The more pictures I see of this interior, the less impressed I am each time. Exterior is trying too hard to be macho.

[Croc]

This thing is so gross.

[Robert Hall]

I see they are taking their styling cues from the Dodge Ram....make it big and make it ugly.

[ocnblu]

...except where the Ram looks like a land animal, the Tundra still resembles a Godzilla larvae to me. Absolutely hideous.

[regfootball]

what were people saying about it at the show? usually people freely make comments.....

i'd say its ugly, inside and out.

[I hope GMRULES again]

I find the dash odd from these photos, it doesn't really flow from side to side. Its like there's one design for the driver and the passenger side gets nothing.

[Flybrian]

So, is this the 'after' Tundra for current Tundra owners who keep getting sand kicked in their faces by owners of better pickups?

[loki]

the front, ew

inside, were 2 different people making 1/2 of the dash? what's w/ the silver knobs on the dark side,

what's the vertical line above the glovebox area? any idea... maybe a scratch... maybe where they had test equipment sit and make in indent?

[Sixty8panther]

Gross, gross & more gross... hard to beleive the exterior

is actually not too bad compared to the interior.

[chevelle454]

That thing is hideous! Interior is horrible!

[Northstar]

I never really took note before, but the upkick in the windowline looks terrible on a truck.

[FAPTurbo]

Ugh. It's just too overwrought looking for me. Toyota is trying way too hard, and this thing makes the new Sierra and Silverado almost refreshing to look at.

[Moto_08]

I gotta admit its good looking and the interior looks great imho compared to cough its competitors.

Edited September 18, 2006 by Moto_08

[bobo]

Also, what is the litte round thing just to the left of the tailgate handle?

194528[/snapback]

That appears to be the backup camera.

[balthazar]

Comes off as completely derivative when it desperately needed to be ground-breaking. I fail to see this pulling down 200K sales as predicted by some.

[Dsuupr]

The front end looks cross-eyed.

Not impressed with the interior color usage. It looks like they ran out of dark grey parts so they put in light grey, then figured out they ran out of light grey so they used tan.

And take note of the blank spot were a button is needed. Hmmm, like a $12,000 Chevy and Pontiac we know.

[Intrepidation]

I kinda like the interior. The exterior on he other hand, ew. I like it less and less each time I see it.

[sciguy_0504]

Looks good inside and out. I just hope the silver plastic on the driver's side holds up well to abuse since it seems to be on all models. If not, Toyota better replace it ASAP.

[Drew Dowdell]

It's a mish mash of designs.

It's likely the GMT-900s and quite possibly even the F-150 have better interiors.

[Cory Wolfe]

Eh... it's not entirely ugly, but it's like a bland ugly, as if Toyota tried too hard.

[toyoguy]

That shifter looks like an eyeglasses case and those silver knobs look like cans of tuna without the wrappers.

194528[/snapback]

as opposed to GM's universal terrible modular HVAC controls. I'll take these Edited September 20, 2006 by toyoguy

[ocnblu]

If you get a chance, toyoguy, see if it says "albacore" anywhere on those knobs.

[regfootball]

oldsmoboi, just caught the sig.....glad to help out!

poor fly. he's going to need a missile defense system on his aurara pretty soon to fend off all those toyota missiles..!

[Intrepidation]

If you get a chance, toyoguy, see if it says "albacore" anywhere on those knobs.

195728[/snapback]

Tundra =

[Polish_Kris]

Jeese people, how can you make assumptions off a prototype that I snapped pictures of, nobody has sat inside of this thing yet, and already, such pre-judgements...

[Northstar]

Jeese people, how can you make assumptions off a prototype that I snapped pictures of, nobody has sat inside of this thing yet, and already, such pre-judgements... 

196156[/snapback]

I don't understand your question? I think people can say whether they think it looks good or not by your pictures. Yes, it's a prototype, but it's still 99.9% of what the production model will look lilke.

I don't think anyone said "the materials suck" or commented about "it's going to be terribly slow," (things they would not know at this point) but please correct me if I'm wrong.

[Variance]

Jeese people, how can you make assumptions off a prototype that I snapped pictures of, nobody has sat inside of this thing yet, and already, such pre-judgements... 

196156[/snapback]

You don't have to sit in it to see what it looks like. Most of the comments have been about the looks not the quality.

[Polish_Kris]

I don't understand your question? I think people can say whether they think it looks good or not by your pictures. Yes, it's a prototype, but it's still 99.9% of what the production model will look lilke.

I don't think anyone said "the materials suck" or commented about "it's going to be terribly slow," (things they would not know at this point) but please correct me if I'm wrong.

196160[/snapback]

You don't have to sit in it to see what it looks like. Most of the comments have been about the looks not the quality.

196162[/snapback]

Ya but still, cars look different in real life than on picture (don't ask me why)... same with the new Sebring, in real life, it's actually not a bad looking car, in pictures, even the ones tht I took, looks pretty bad... I'm not a real fan of the new Tundra, however it's a vast improvement from what it was, based on what I saw... It's funny, cause when I was waiting up for Ted while he grabbed his brouchures, I had a smoke next tot the Tundra, to take another look, and there were at least three big macho (gotta have me a Ford truck kind of guys) coming up to it, and saying "all right boys, this is my next truck", and they were serious about it Even when I asked them, one of them told me, that the "Japanese have finaly learned how to make a real truck"...

Anyways, for me a truck that big would be, well, too big, if anything, I'd pick up an X-runner.

[76ChevyTrucker]

It looks really goofy in the pictures, but I'll reserve my REAL ragging and dislikes for when I see one in person.

[Drew Dowdell]

Jeese people, how can you make assumptions off a prototype that I snapped pictures of, nobody has sat inside of this thing yet, and already, such pre-judgements... 

196156[/snapback]

haven't you done the same with the GMT-900s?

[Polish_Kris]

haven't you done the same with the GMT-900s?

196227[/snapback]

UM... no, I always said, that I'm not going to say how nice interiors are unless I sit inside of them first...

[GMman]

I don't want to offend anyone for commenting on the pictures, but the truck looks just as goofy as the current one. Seems to me that toyota is just gonna keep changing the look of this truck until they get the "magical" style down so they can sell some of them. I can't understand why car companies keep putting that stupid looking silver metallic plastic on interior trim. It doesn't look good and it's a high wear location.....the silver wears off in places in about 3-4 years.

The exterior is simply a smorgasborg copy of the American trucks. Mainly Dodge and the Ford Super Duty. The interior looks pure toyota to me, which is a bad thing.

Competition is good for everybody, but the japanese don't offer much competition with stuff like this.

[Guest YellowJacket894]

Breaking news from the Michigan Associated Press: The content of a road test back in 1968 conducted by Car & Driver for the Opel Kadett L Station Wagon wasn't actually talking about the car on the pages of the magazine. According to (a possibly drunk) Patrick Bedard, an editor who has worked at Car & Driver for a solid four decades, "We never actually tested the Kadett. The U.S. government wanted to give the auto media of the Sixties a taste of the auto future, so they sent us to the year 2007 to test Toyota's Tundra. They talked about how Toyota had grown into a full-scale auto manufacturer after almost forty years. Of course, the only thing Toyota could manufacture back in 1968 was a Red Wings boot-box with a one-cylinder engine, so we laughed our ass off. Hell, we were laughing at the governement representative who offered us the chance. But, since the official insisted, I decided to take the trip."

Apparantly, the chance was real. Continues Bedard, "I went to 2007 and took one look at the Tundra and was repulsed. So was the writer from Cycle magazine, Cook Neilson, who would write the Tundra review disguised as a Kadett article. We thought it was a mass of harded tapioca with four skinny tires. We thought that LSD was legal in the future judging by the styling. We hated it."

Before Bedard had to leave the room, he told us that the U.S. official instructed both men to keep their mouths closed and not mention the truck in any shape, fashion, or form. But they couldn't resist.

"We both couldn't bottle up how much we hated the Toyota. We laughed at Toyota back then and then we grew to secretly hate the company over the years. Why would Toyota reach such a well noted position in the car market and insult the buyer and enthusiast alike?"

Then more secret previews occured and Bedard found a way to vent his rage.

"The government kept coming back and letting me preview more Toyotas, including the 2007 Camry. I puked when I saw that one. And the day after I returned from that preview session, I had scheduled Neilson, the man who went with me for the Tundra preview, to write a review for the Opel Kadett. I didn't think the Kadett was a bad car, just a little bland. But I told him to bash the hell out of the Tundra and use the Kadett as a front. We figured since GM was such a large company and was building such nice products, they could handle the bad review. They did, to some extent, but they pulled the Frigidare ads in Modern Bride, a sister publication at the time, which was no big loss. The best part, though, was that no one noticed what we were talking about."

Said Bedard, "We said the Kadett 'consitutes a never-ending stream of the third-rate and the underdone,' that it was 'a rolling potpourri of medocrity,' that 'it stands for nothing, affirms nothing, suggests nothing,' and that 'it's your definite non-car, a limp, unending mass of tapioca, an embodiment of zepplin-sized boredom on an economy scale.' "

But it soon became adictive. Continues Bedard, "The government wouldn't let up with the previews. But they soon became few and few and less into the future. I got to see Lee Iacocca's Chrysler K-Cars and they pissed me off to hell. I just don't understand why a man who helped get the Mustang on it's feet would make such a $h!box. And then I got to see the Pinto and what havoc it would bring and it made me furious. Both cars resulted in bad GM reviews to vent the rage."

Over the years bad GM reviews would come about because of goverment auto previews. All magazines were doing it. It soon sent GM into a Dark Age for a short time.

Closes Bedard, "I'm just glad this is off my chest."