I'm back in Colorado for the holiday weekend. I saw my first ever G8 yesterday in traffic--red, looked very sharp. The driver looked old enough to have a bought one of a GTO new back in '64. Saw it twice, the guy must live in my 'hood.
On Saturday, I had a very strange experience at an intersection down the street from home--felt like being in a TV commercial---call it 'It's a Toyota World'. I'm sitting a light at the intersection of two 4 lane streets---I'm in a 4Runner rental (more on that later), beside me is a goregous '82-83 Supra in black (one of the few Toyota designs I've ever liked), to my left is a Yaris and Avalon; across the intersection, a Camry and a Corolla; to my right, an FJ Cruiser turning at the light with a Highlander and Prius waiting at the light. UNREAL. I've never seen synchronicity like that before.
I later took a 5-min loop around my neighborhood on some of the major residential (and one commerical/residential) streets, and played 'count the Toyota'---counted 35 Toyotas, 5 Scions, and 15 Lexuses.
Back to the rental car...I rented an SUV for my visit back home, and drove a white 4Runner SR5. This was the first Toyota I'd ever driven, have ridden in many Camrys and Corollas and driven a couple of Lexuses, never driven a Toyota though. I liked the 4Runner...very smooth, comfortable.. I liked most of the details overall--nice size and plenty of space inside (and no 3rd row in the way), I like the power rear window, key on the dash, and controls (the stalk controls worked similar to my Jeep). As far as negatives, there were strange plugs on the console and dash for missing options--looked cheap, the console trim felt hard and cheap, only had a fuel and temp gauge, no voltage or oil pressure gauges, only 1 12V power outlet--and it didn't work, and the manual seat controls were wierd (maybe I'm too used to power seats, but when I came in late Friday night I couldn't figure out how to lower the seat (some wierd rachet level thingy). Someone short had it before me I ended up w/ my head into the sunroof opening. Overall, a very nice traditional style SUV...
Paid $4.13/gallon for gas today...fun, fun.