News & Reviews- Make: Toyota

There are a lot of reasons why Toyota is number one in mid-size pickup truck sales, and while rugged good looks, capability, durability, reliability and owner satisfaction are indeed high up on the list, you can't discount its longevity in the marketplace either.

The Taco, as fans like to call it, had its 20th birthday this year, arriving on the light truck scene in 1995, and that was after 20 years of Toyota truck brand building via the humbly named Pickup, while before that the HiLux filled the Japanese brand's compact trucklet gap back to 1969, the Stout from to '64, and of course the much-lauded and highly collectible Land Cruiser FJ45 was Toyota's first North American truck entry in '63. That's 52 years of dutiful truck service.

The Tacoma didn't run the full 20 years without a redesigned, but rather was updated in 2004 as a 2005 model, both iterations serving Toyota and its devoted truck fans very well. Now, 11 years down the line it gets another redesign for Read Full Story

Since Honda abandoned its unorthodox Crosstour last year, which was more hatchback than wagon and, most would agree, bordered on fugly, Subaru's Outback and this Toyota Venza are the only two five-passenger mid-size crossovers in the mainstream volume sector that venture into more traditional wagon territory. Nissan's new Murano comes close, but its taller overall height puts it within range of the Ford Edge and other more SUV-like crossovers, which is either a very good thing if you're looking for something more car-like, or not ideal if greater ride height is preferable.

When the Venza debuted in early 2009 it was just the ticket for disenfranchised Camry wagon owners (who by this point had been without their beloved five-door for eight years), its first year of sales resulting in 12,375 Canadian buyers, while calendar year 2010 was even more successful with 12,468 units sold and 2011 resulting in a best-ever 13,159 deliveries. Things started to taper off for the 2012 calendar Read Full Story

Do you want to guess how many different compact models Chevrolet has produced since the Vega hit the scene in 1971? Just after Vega came Monza and then Chevette, all sold simultaneously and all falling under the old subcompact designation, then Sprint (Metro in the US), Cavalier, Cobalt, Optra (in Canada), and Cruze. Ford and Chrysler group's compact entries follow similar paths, with names like Cortina, Pinto, Escort and Focus for the blue-oval bunch and Omni, Shadow, Neon, SX, Caliber and now Dart for Dodge. Why the history lesson? I'm just wondering how much better domestic brands would have fared in the compact segment if they'd followed Toyota's lead with just one compact nameplate over 50 years like the now legendary Corolla.

We wouldn't use "legendary" to describe the Chevette, Pinto or Omni, although the latter model's GLH was nutty fun for the era, not to mention the Shelby GLH-S version, but is it possible the Big 3 domestics would enjoy the same level of compact loyalty Read Full Story

I was only two years old when Toyota launched its first car in Canada, and while 50 years sounds like a long time it certainly goes by quickly. That car wasn't a RAV4, the popular crossover SUV having only come to market 21 years ago in 1994, but rather a number of JDM cars including the Corona, Crown, 700 UP10 (Publica) and the now legendary Land Cruiser, some of which didn't necessarily fit our market-the Corolla, created for other markets in 1966, didn't show up here until 1969.

The challenges Toyota and its fledgling dealers faced in 1965 were immense (my best friend's dad bought a yellow Corona Mark II with gold vinyl seats in the late '60s and we thought this was very unusual), but the rest, as the saying goes, is history. Now, with sales of Toyota branded vehicles at 179,324 units in Canada last year, a number that signifies steady growth towards its pre-market crash highs of 209,157 deliveries in 2008, not to mention an all-time high of 17,565 Lexus vehicles in 2014 and Read Full Story

Are SUV sales slowing? That depends on how you look at it. Compared to a couple of decades ago the sales of traditional sport utilities are now much lower, the 4Runner reviewed here one of just a handful of body-on-frame 4x4s still available, yet the 4,022 Canadian-spec models sold last year represented the model's best volume in more than a decade, while Toyota's US division enjoyed even better per capita sales of 76,906 units during the same 12 months. What's more, this more than decent volume appears to be on an upswing for the first half of 2015 with 2,440 4Runners already down the road.

Comparing such numbers to the sale of crossover SUVs, the 4Runner certainly doesn't come close to the 36,639 RAV4s Toyota Canada sold in 2014 or even the 9,749 Highlanders, but it's not too far away from Honda's tally of 6,113 Pilots, easily beats out the 3,886 Traverse CUVs Chevy managed to peddle let alone the 1,779 Tahoes bowtie buyers bought, slaughters Mazda's similarly sized CX-9 that Read Full Story