Toyota Releases a Small Tacoma Teaser: Comments

[Drew Dowdell]

We are a little more than a month away from the North American International Auto Show in Detroit, but much like the Christmas music in stores the day after Halloween, companies like to tease us for a month or two ahead of time.

One of the earliest teasers (that wasn't a full reveal like the Mercedes GLE) is the next generation Toyota Tacoma. So far, all we get to see is the tailgate of the 2016 Toyota Tacoma that will be revealed in about a month. We're expecting styling to borrow heavily from its big brother, the Toyota Tundra.

The Tacoma has been the best selling small truck for a number of years now as the Detroit three ceded the segment to the Japanese. However, Toyota is going to be facing stiff competition in the next couple of years. GM is back with a vengeance with their new Chevrolet Colorado and GMC Canyon, the former of which won MotorTrend's Truck of the Year award for 2015, Nissan's Frontier will be updated soon, Honda is returning with the Ridgeline, and rumors suggest Ford's Ranger is due to return as well.

Toyota sold 159,485 Tacoma Trucks in 2013 and 140,757 Tacomas of November 2014. With such strong competition coming, Toyota is going to have to make sure they leave no tailgate unlatched to keep up the sales pace.

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