Yahoo Autos 2024 Toyota Tacoma Is All-New from Steel Bumpers to Aluminum Uppers
Toyota’s fourth-generation Tacoma looks set to continue dominance of the midsize pickup market when it debuts in December.
With several versions of a 2.4-liter turbo-four, including a hybrid, there’s power aplenty for towing up to 6500 pounds and hauling up to 1705 pounds.
Prices range from $32,995 to $53,595.
The fourth-generation Toyota Tacoma coming out next month is all-new from its optional steel bumpers to its aluminum upper body. It rides on the larger, more rigid TNGA-F platform shared with the Tundra full-size pickup and Sequoia and coming Land Cruiser SUVs. More crossmembers and added welds make it structurally stronger than its predecessors while a Calty-designed exterior further aligns with its larger siblings.
But it might not have needed any of that because even in its eight-year-old third-gen self it has absolutely stomped the competition. While most every other midsize pickup competitor has lost sales this year, Toyota Tacoma actually went up, despite pretty much everyone on the planet knowing it was going to be all-new by year’s end. Good bargains to be had?
Through September Toyota moved 179,681 Tacomas off dealer lots, an increase of 2.2% over the same period in 2022. That’s almost three times more than the number-two competitor Ford Maverick and number-three Chevy Colorado.
Yet, Toyota redid the whole truck anyway.
The TNGA-F architecture (Toyota New Generation Architecture–F) incorporates high-strength steel that gets more laser welds than before for increased rigidity. There’s aluminum in the upper body for added lightness, along with an extra crossmember in front and stronger crossmembers running the length of the frame.
There’s even an attachment point for a high-lift jack (though if you were paying attention you wouldn’t get yourself stuck in a place that required a high-lift jack).
In back are leaf springs on some models and coil springs on others, depending on how much you plan to load into the bed or onto the tow hitch. Leaf springs are generally better for large loads, coil springs for ride comfort with light loads, so take your pick based on what you plan to do with your Taco.
Disc brakes are standard across the board—surprisingly, they weren’t before. You can get bigger brakes on the higher-zoot models. Standard for each rig is electric power steering—it’s like the Tacoma has entered the 21st century!
“The Calty team focused on Toyota’s truck DNA and the Toyota Baja race trucks for inspiration to capture the extreme spirit of off-road adventure,” Calty President Kevin Hunter said. “High lift, big tires, slim body, and a powerful athletic stance define the iconic Tacoma look, referred to as ‘Tacoma-ness.’”
(For the record, I’ve never in my life heard the term, “Tacoma-ness” applied to anything, nor have I ever heard the erudite and intelligent Calty head Kevin Hunter call anything a “Badass adventure machine,” yet both terms were in the Toyota press material attributed to him. I suspect marketing and PR wrote those words.)
A Satisfying Off-Road Adventure Hauler
Regardless of how you describe them, the features of the new Taco make for a satisfying off-road-capable adventure hauler. Toyota let us try them out on a newly bulldozed section of Calamigos Ranch in the Santa Monica Mountains above Malibu.
We are all supposed to be “saving the manuals,” so I chose a manual-transmission Tacoma for my first off-road foray—a TRD Off Road Double Cab 5-Foot Bed Manual to be exact. It came with the 2.4-liter turbo-four driving the six-speed manual through all four wheels, which meant 270 hp and 310 lb-ft of torque. It rode on double wishbones in front and coil springs in the rear.
