Toyota Tundra

Encyclopedia : T : TO : TOY : Toyota Tundra

The Toyota Tundra is a full-size pickup truck sold by Toyota, replacing the T100. The Tundra was nominated for the North American Truck of the Year award and was Motor Trend magazine's Truck of the Year for 2000.

Contents

1 First generation
2 Second generation
3 Trivia
4 External links

First generation

Publicly introduced in 1998 as a 1999 model, the Tundra was initially to be called the T150. However, the Ford Motor Company and automotive pundits felt that this name was too close to the market-leading Ford F-150, and following a lawsuit by Ford, the truck was quickly renamed to Tundra.

Toyota countersued, and forced Ford to change the name of their Lincoln LS6 and LS8, introduced around the same time as the Tundra, as Toyota felt that it was too close to that of its iconic Lexus LS sedan.

The Tundra was larger than the T100, but still suffered as being too small and carlike to pose a serious threat to the domestic pickup trucks. Although sales were double the dismal rate of the T100, the 100,000 Tundras sold each year failed to dent the surging Ford and GM trucks, though it arguably ate some sales from Dodge.

The grill was updated for 2004 and the double cab version was added to the lineup. The double cab version is a a true crew cab with four normal doors and interior and exterior details copied from the Toyota Sequoia. It is also 13 inches longer and 3 inches taller than the standard and Accesscab versions. New engines were introduced in 2005: a 4.0 L V6 and 4.7 L V8 with VVT-i with increased torque and horsepower.

Second generation

A much larger Tundra was introduced at the Chicago Auto Show for 2007. It is larger than the competing Ford F-Series, Chevrolet Silverado (and Avalanche), Dodge Ram, and Nissan Titan and sports styling like the Toyota FTX concept shown at the North American International Auto Show in 2004. The Tundra is built in San Antonio, Texas and Gibson County, Indiana for the North American market.

Engine choices include a 4.0 L V6, 4.7 L V8, and new 5.7 L V8. A towing capacity of 10,000 lb (4,536 kg) is promised.

Trivia

Some prototypes of the Tundra were given to racing legends Ivan "Ironman" Stewart and Rod Millen.

A Toyota Tundra was featured in ', and in 2003 the truck was also available in a special edition inspired by this movie and called Tundra T3'''.

A Double Cab version of Tundra was unveiled at the 2003 Chicago Auto Show and joined the Regular and Access Cab models in the 2004 lineup.

In 2004, the Tundra became part of the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series.

Starting with episode 2 of the ongoing NBC reality show Treasure Hunters, each team was given a Tundra for use throughout the game.

External links

[Toyota Tundra FAQ]

From Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Original article here. Support Wikipedia by contributing or donating.
All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License See Wikipedia Copyrights for details.