Car Gazing
Expensive Tacoma tops among mid-size trucks
Toyota's smallest pickup performs like a truck, drives like a car
By Derek Price
Of all the stupid commercials on TV, some of the stupidest have to be for pickup trucks.
They're all the same. A deep-voiced man mumbles about how such-and-such truck is the strongest, most powerful and toughest machine the world has ever known, while we watch guys wearing flannel abuse the very truck they're trying to sell us. They fill the bed full of iron pipes and chains, drive it through waist-deep mud and tow things big enough to upset the earth's gravitational field.
It's all very predictable. In fact, I bet the manufacturers are trying to save money by recycling the same scripts and the same announcer they've used since 1965, hoping truck buyers won't notice.
And if you were watching the Super Bowl this year, you saw that Toyota has carbon-copied those same ads for its mammoth Tundra pickup. It has the same deep-voiced man and the same abuse by guys in flannel. It's Toyota's way of saying, "We make big, tough, manly trucks just like the folks in Detroit."
Indeed, they do.
Even when you look at the Tundra's little brother, the Tacoma, it's a monster of a machine. Park it next to a Ford Ranger, and the Ford looks like a toddler's Power Wheels toy.
The 2007 Tacoma competes in what used to be called the compact truck category, but there's nothing compact about it. With the exception of the Ranger, which hasn't been changed since the Cretaceous Period, the other small trucks for sale – like the Chevy Colorado, Dodge Dakota and Nissan Frontier – are slightly toned-down versions of their full-size siblings. They're all very capable, very tough and very roomy.
The Tacoma, though, adds one more trait. It's very refined.
This truck doesn't feel like a truck. Oh, sure, it rides up high and bounces around a little bit, but it doesn't feel nearly as rough around the edges as most pickups, especially the not-quite-full-size ones. You get the impression that its designers actually cared about such novel concepts as steering and brake feel, chassis stiffness and suspension response. Most trucks feel like they were designed by people who said, "Steering feel? Who cares! Just make sure the truck kinda sorta goes where you point it."
And, while the deep-voiced man would hate me saying this, the Tacoma drives like a car on the highway. It's big, smooth and quiet – a sleek Interstate whale.
Its performance, though, is definitely like a truck. Toyota is one of the few manufacturers to still offer a basic, single-cab work truck with a four-cylinder engine. But when equipped with a 4.0-liter V6 that makes 236 horsepower, it feels like it can pull just about anything. For an extra $650, you can get a tow package that includes a 130-amp alternator, heavy-duty battery, transmission oil cooler, and a Class IV hitch with seven-pin connector. It's enough to tow 6,500 pounds.
The Tacoma is available in lots of flavors, ranging from the basic work truck for less than $15,000 to a four-wheel-drive, double-cab model with all the bells and whistles for around $30,000. That's an awful lot of money for a truck that's smaller than full-size.
It will buy you a lot of compliments, though. I was surprised at how many people commented on the Tacoma's good looks, giving it thumbs up and saying how nice it looked. To me, it was just a truck. To everybody else, it seemed to be something special. Go figure.
Inside, the quality is far better than most pickups, but it still lags behind Toyota's cars. Materials look great but feel cheap. The seats are big and roomy – and downright luxurious with the spacious double cab.
There's very little to dislike about this truck, other than the premium price. It drives better than other trucks, performs well and looks great, and it can come in 13 quadrillion configurations to suit any budget.
If only Toyota could inject the same creativity into its TV ads.
(Derek Price is a newspaper editor and freelance writer living in Texas.)
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