TO THE POINTFirst impression: Bigger and badder, but somehow still looks smaller than an F-150 or Silverado Pricing: None yet, but promises to be the “best value in the full-size truck segment” On-sale date: January 2007
These boys ain’t messin’ around.
Irv Miller, VP of Corporate Communications, calls it a “big bad motha’ of truck.” Jim Press, president and CEO, refers to it as the “biggest, boldest bad-ass truck in history.”
If you’re thinking this is guy talk taking place at a bar after a few beers, you’d be way off. It’s just after 9:00 in the morning at the 2006 Chicago Auto Show, and those remarks are from Toyota’s highest-ranking executives as they launch the totally redesigned 2007 Tundra pickup. Apparently Toyota has heard enough about its biggest truck being “not quite full-size” or “not really competitive with true truck buyers.”
Though still called the Tundra, there’s little to tie this new brute to the model it replaces. The look is all-new, with a muscular, domed hood, subtle wheel flares, body accent lines along the bed and fenders, and a body that just looks, well, bigger. That makes sense considering the 2007 Tundra has a longer wheelbase, has increased ten inches in length, five inches in height, and is four inches wider. Some may call it overkill, others will more appropriately see it as what Toyota needed to do to become truly competitive.
