It’s no secret that America is obsessed with the full-size pickup truck. Drive far enough outside of a city and you’ll find that the default option for many people is a beast from one of America’s Big Three. A little over three decades ago, Toyota knew this, but thought it could win the hearts of American buyers by making a slimmer, smarter truck. The Toyota T100 was a cool truck that didn’t really work, forcing Toyota to copy the big dogs.
The Toyota of today is a valid competitor with the Big Three in the big truck game. The Tundra is a big and burly vehicle capable of doing hard work or masquerading as a luxury car with a high towing capacity. It’s a style of truck that’s almost uniquely American. No matter if you order a Ford F-150, Chevrolet Silverado 1500, or Ram 1500, you can get something with loads of power, piles of toys, and capability that boggles the mind.
The Toyota Tundra cannot unseat the domestic offerings from the podium, but the American-designed and Texas-built truck holds its own in the marketplace. Certainly, Toyota has found success in selling a full-size pickup truck in ways that the likes of Nissan have not. Honda isn’t even trying to compete in this space. The Tundra, along with the Tacoma, gave Toyota a strong foothold in America’s truck market, but it wasn’t always like this.
Setting The Stage
Flip your calendars back to the 1980s and the automotive world was a very different place. Toyota notes that in 1980, Japan built 10 million vehicles. The country built so many vehicles that it became the world’s largest producer of cars, which was incredible given how America was considered to be the largest car market. Of Japan’s insane production volume of automobiles, 5.97 million were exported to other countries, with America being Japan’s favorite export destination.
But over in America, things were dire. The economy sank and America’s auto manufacturers struggled. In 1980, passenger car sales were down by 16 percent. However, the people who did buy cars turned towards imports. As a result, the number of Japanese cars sold in America rose by 9 percent that year. In contrast, Toyota writes, the Big Three were huge losers, sinking 21 percent in 1980. Even poor American Motors found itself in the red while Chrysler begged the feds for help.
The sinking of the American automotive industry led to widespread layoffs. Suddenly, everyone from the United Auto Workers to Congress was pointing fingers at Japan for selling attractive cars that American automakers couldn’t compete with. The UAW reportedly went so far as to blame Japan for the unemployment of its workers.
President Ronald Reagan took office in 1981, and one of his cabinet’s first actions was convincing Japan that it should voluntarily limit exports to America to 1.6 million units. The Japanese government agreed.
Japan’s automotive industry responded in various ways [Ed Note: One way was building plants here in the U.S. -DT], such as flooding the market with new luxury cars like Infiniti and Lexus. One other method that kept Toyota’s presence healthy in America was selling tons of Hilux trucks, which were marketed here as the Truck and Pickup. Toyota had plenty of experience selling trucks in America with the FJ45 Land Cruiser and the previous Hilux, but there was a problem.
People who grew out of their compact Toyotas bought full-size domestic pickup trucks. Toyota was essentially leaving money on the table by not offering a step up from the Pickup. But there was one additional twist in that Toyota apparently had no idea how to make an American full-sized truck.
The Not Quite Full-Size
However, Toyota also couldn’t just ignore this. It was now the early 1990s and Toyota Motor Sales U.S.A. was begging Toyota brass in Japan to give them a full-size. Sure, the compact truck sold well, but they didn’t want Detroit to have all of the fun with larger trucks.
As Automotive News writes, Toyota Motor Sales U.S.A. Executive Vice President Bob McCurry figured he could convince Japan to make it happen. After all, it was his team that got the approval for the creation of Lexus in 1989. That worked out well, so he thought a full-size truck wasn’t going to be a big deal.
However, the executives in Japan didn’t see the point in taking the risk. It wasn’t like the Americans didn’t try, either. As the story goes, Toyota Motor Sales U.S.A. tried every trick in the book from presenting a mountain of market research to trying to get brass to drive an American pickup to see what all of the fuss was about. They even sent 10-gallon hats to Toyota brass to illustrate the kind of space American pickup owners wanted their cabs to have.
At the same time, there was also a competing study. As Car and Driver reported, Toyota engineers asked truck owners what they liked about their trucks. Americans told them that they loved capaÂbility and reliability, but wished their trucks weren’t so darn huge. Toyota engineers figured that there could be a market of about 220,000 buyers per year for a full-size truck that had some girth taken out.
Ultimately, Japan did agree to give America a bigger truck. But this new truck wasn’t going to be a true full-size. It would end up falling between the likes of something like a Dodge Dakota and a Dodge Ram. Toyota saw it as making a smaller full-size truck, even though that sounds a bit like an oxymoron.
In fairness to Toyota, it’s not like Toyota had experience developing a proper full-size truck. As Automotive News writes, making a full-size truck isn’t as easy as scaling up a compact truck. Full-size trucks have parts made for heavier work and required factory tooling that Toyota didn’t have. Reportedly, there was also fear that directly copying the style of the full-size American truck could have been met with pushback from Detroit and the government.
So, it was settled. Toyota was going to sell a truck in America that was only sort of full-size.
Toyota’s plan was to do what Detroit wasn’t doing. Its truck would be smaller, yes, but big on space. How small are we talking? Well, a T100 measured in at 209.1 inches long and was equipped with an eight foot bed. In 1993, the year the T100 hit the market, the longest Dodge Dakota was 203.2 inches long. Meanwhile, the shortest 1993 Ford F-150 with an eight foot box was 213.3 inches. It wasn’t just a shorter length either. The Ford was 79 inches wide while the ‘Yota was 75.2 inches.
The T100 was also different under the skin. Remember how I said that Toyota didn’t have any full-size truck parts on hand? Well, the T100 used a similar front suspension and frame to the smaller Pickup. Rear wheel drive models had a double wishbone torsion bar front suspension while 4x4s had a Toyota exclusive independent front suspension. Leaf springs took up the rear and 4×4 models had their spring spans located above the rear axle for more clearance.
Toyota was also quirky when it came down to what was under the hood. Toyota’s American dealers demanded V8 power because that’s what American truck buyers crave. Toyota brass in Japan didn’t get it. Why would they put a V8 in this truck when they could get a V6 to make the same power? As Automotive News notes, Toyota thought the truck market worked just like the car market with everyone choosing all kinds of different engines. Japan didn’t quite realize that Americans craved V8s and sixes were considered to be the cheap option.
Still, when the T100 launched it came with a 3.0-liter V6. A 2.7-liter four cylinder and a 3.4-liter V6 would be offered, but the T100 galloped through its entire production run without a V8. Toyota’s pitch to Americans was that you didn’t need V8 power when the 150 HP pumped out by the lower engines or the 190 HP from the hotter 3.4-liter should have been good enough.
Toyota then boasted about the truck’s 20 mpg highway fuel economy and 24.3-gallon tank, saying that you could fill it up and forget about gas stations for a while.
Despite these compromises, Toyota wanted to win on smart features. This was a smaller truck, but the cab was still large enough to fit three cowboy hat-fitted adults abreast. The New York Times mentioned that Toyota also thought of nice little touches. The 4×4 versions of these trucks were jacked up sky-high. It was normal for trucks back then to not provide grab bars to help shorter drivers pull themselves in. But there were bars for the passenger. Toyota offered grab bars to both passenger and driver so everyone could take one for a spin.
Other neat carlike features included adjustable seatbelt mounts, cruise control on the steering wheel, a CD player, and carlike cupholders
Toyota didn’t stop there. Engineers made sure the cab was held to the same high quality standards that Toyota was known for by that point and that suspension I mentioned earlier was tuned to give more carlike handling. What the Toyota T100 lacked in size it attempted to make for in doing what the bigger trucks didn’t. Yet, the T100 also managed a 1,680-pound payload and up to a 5,000-pound towing capacity, so it could still do real truck stuff. Toyota, then very well-versed in off-roading, also equipped the 4x4s in beefy skid plates.
The Media Loved It, The Public Didn’t
All of this was good, but the market didn’t receive the truck well.
The problem wasn’t the media as reviewers did seem to like them. Peggy Spencer Castine from the New York Times enjoyed the smaller size:
Although Toyota describes the T100 as an intermediate, Toyota has sent it after the Big Three’s big boys. Some of its key interior dimensions compare favorably with the Dodge Ram and the Chevy C/K series. And this sleek V6 pony is agile enough to run circles around Detroit’s muscular V8 workhorses, two of which — the Ram and the ’97 Ford F-150 — I also drove.
Does one really need the 230 horsepower of a Ram V8 to drive to the supermarket? I had a hard time reining in the monster Dodge to stay under my neighborhood’s 25- mile-an-hour limit. And do you really need a truck so wide that it straddles your driveway? In a 1997 Ford F-150, I was afraid to back up in a busy school parking lot for fear I’d take out three cars and an untold number of children. The T100 is still a big truck — I had to reach down to get my burgers from a drive-through window. But it was a lot easier to slip into parking places.
Inside, the T100 ($28,349 as tested) was comfy and cozy, with plenty of storage spaces, serviceable cup holders and easy-to-use controls. In the Ram, with its huge center console and side mirrors the size of small televisions, I felt as if I were in the land of giants. At least the folks at Ford seem to have gotten the message: The F-150 includes some nice touches, like dual air bags and extra power outlets.
Popular Science called the T100 the “Best of What’s New” while J.D. Power praised the truck’s quality for multiple years. The legendary John Davis of MotorWeek offered his own take:
In that review, Davis noted that Toyota’s prospective buyers didn’t care for butch looks, so the T100 was given a gentle design reminiscent of the Pickup that came before it. Davis also noted that like a big truck, the T100 had no problems swallowing 4×8 plywood sheets between the wheel wells. MotorWeek praised the T100’s payload and towing capacity, but mentioned that its 12.6-second 60 mph acceleration time was so slow that actually carrying a heavy payload would be an “ordeal.”
Despite saying that there was a market of 220,000 people a year for a truck like this, Toyota expected to sell 60,000 T100s a year. The reason was two-fold. The truck was built in Japan, which meant it was subject to the 25 percent Chicken Tax. The factory that built the truck could only assemble so many trucks, anyway.
MotorWeek said the T100 started at $14,000 and if you wanted the hopped-up SR5, that set you back $16,000. Davis noted that these prices — thanks to the Chicken Tax — meant that the T100 was $3,000 more expensive than an equivalent F-150. So, you really had to want a T100 because you were paying more for physically less truck. Then there was just the problem of converting absurdly loyal American truck buyers away from their domestics and into an import.
Ultimately, MotorWeek concludes that the T100 is a bit of a hybrid. It’s sized closer to a mid-size truck and handles like a compact truck, but hauls like a full-size truck. However, Toyota’s choice to stick with light-duty components and the V6 engine means the truck can’t work as hard as a domestic. Some also didn’t like how there was only a single cab option at first.
Despite the positive reviews and awards, Toyota never came close to the 60,000 units a year expectation. It sold a third of that number in 1993 and fewer copies than that in 1994 when the first Xtracab launch. Toyota refreshed the model in 1995 but that didn’t work, either. The best year for sales was 1996, when Toyota moved around 38,000 units. However, that was a drop in the pond compared to Ford slinging 850,000 trucks that same year.
Toyota began to recognize its mistake early on. It answered the calls for a bigger cab, but didn’t have any quick solutions to the price or the engine. MotorWeek notes that Toyota planned to move production to America to save the T100 from the Chicken Tax as well as to get a V8 from a domestic automaker to solve that complaint.
Toyota’s response to the poor sales of the T100 was to make a larger successor, the T150.
This truck would eventually become known as the Tundra, but not before it went through its own nightmare of a development cycle. Automotive News notes that when Toyota first displayed the Tundra to dealers it had a V6. Dealers told Toyota to give it a V8 or don’t even bother. The Tundra did end up with a V8 and sales soared, but Toyota still received complaints about the first-generation Tundra being too small and not having the hauling capabilities of an American truck.
Toyota did eventually figure out how to make a truck for Americans, but it took a very long time. It did so by letting Americans take the reins in designing a truck. Finally, in 2006, Toyota launched the second-generation Tundra, a truck that was unapologetic in playing the same game as the trucks the Big Three were playing. This was the truck that those executives in Japan were scared about in 1993. But, it has since paid off.
Normally, I would call a story like the T100’s an Unholy Fail. But this time I don’t want to go there. By all accounts, it seemed that Toyota just had to learn how to make trucks the hard way. The T100 might have been a bit of a failure and proof that even mighty Toyota can have a miss, but it motivated Toyota to keep going back to the drawing board until it came out with something that worked. If anything, it’s a story reminding you that if you get knocked down, you can still get back up and keep on swinging.
(Images: Toyota, unless otherwise noted.)
It takes such a long time to wear down common sense but kudos to Toyota for pointlessly clinging to theirs for so long.
I had one of these (95, v6, auto, 4×4, extended cab shortbed). I’ve also had just about everything else, from a Hardbody to Rangers to Dakotas to S10s to early 90s full-size GMs and Fords to full-sizers in the 00s from the big 3 to an 11 Sierra to a 2010 Hemi Ram, so my buttocks know from trucks. The T100 was comfortable, reliable, and capable enough. It also drove like a sedan, and I always liked my trucks to feel more like trucks. If I was a one-vehicle man, this formula makes sense. But in a world where I had options, I like my cars to be cars and my trucks to be cliche.
I don’t know, it seems like Toyota did a magnificent job of convincing Americans that small pickups should be larger.
Came here to say this. They should have tried convincing Americans small trucks should be smaller instead. 12.6 0-60 in a truck that gets a solid 35mpg wouldn’t be too bad. And “what about merging on 80mph Texas freeways?” This isn’t the truck for you, Tons of 400hp pigs out there for you.
The T100 was unfortunately setup to fail. Though it’s a perfect size for myself and – I suspect – many others, it was too small and had too (two) few cylinders for the price.
It’s mentioned in the comments that the price wasn’t a matter to people at the time who were cross-shopping it with full size trucks, but I’d bet it mattered a lot to those who were cross-shopping it with smaller trucks, which is the segment the T100 may have resonated better with.
The chicken tax made it priced too high to compete with the larger full size trucks, but had they been able to lower prices to compete with the mid-size Dodge Dakota, they would have had to cut costs on the compact Toyota Pickup as well because it too cost more than the Dakota. Even the Tacoma, which debuted in 1995 and skirted the chicken tax by being built in the US, still cost more than a same year Dakota.
Had the T100 debuted like the Tundra, with an extended cab and optional V8 at launch, they would have fared better and the overall size may not have been blamed for its failure, but marketing and pricing should have been directed at scooping up small pickup buyers who were looking for something more substantial without sacrificing ride quality and fuel economy.
The T-100 was simply a slightly larger Tacoma.
Good article. Now explain why the Nissan Titan failed even though it started out of the gate as a full-sized truck.
Short take:
Absurdly loyal American truck buyers
Major recall in the first year because the rear diff needed to be broken in 500 miles before towing with it. (What the hell Nissan?)
Horrible Cummins engine in the second gen
The odd 1500 Heavy Duty debacle.
Slightly off styling.
“Absurdly loyal American truck buyers”
I think this is correctly at the top. Recall aside, the Titan seemed to be a perfectly fine truck for the first gen. It had gobs of power, it was just as “big” as everyone else. Price was competitive.
Toyota despite “missteps” like the T100, still earned equity with truck buyers with their reputation for reliability and the following the Tacoma earned. I think you had Tacoma owners willing to move up to a Tundra, and some Big 3 buyers willing to try Toyota once they had the V8.
Nissan didn’t have that. The Frontier has some buyers, but it doesn’t have anything close to the following the Tacoma does. When Nissan released the Titan, they were on their way to becoming today’s Nissan, not the Nissan of the 90’s that was often competing with Toyota and Honda.
I think you are right on the money with the Toyota loyalty (and Nissan’s lack of it). Everyone I know who has a Tundra today had a Tacoma before it. Every. Single. One. And most have other Toyotas in their fleet.
Conversely, the folks that I knew who had a first-gen Titan, including a sibling, bought it because it was cheaper than the competition or it had massive incentives thrown at it to move it (for those that bought one new). None of them were particularly fond of Nissan, and none of them still own a Titan today – my sibling sold it and bought a slightly older F150 that is still being daily driven today with nearly 300,000 miles on it.
The Frontier is severely underrated. It’s sad because when Datsun bought out their little pickup, they did it before Toyota and had a following. How times have changed.
The ’90s Hardbody was a stellar small pickup.
Yes it was.
I remember reading from the automotive press that the T100 was a 3/4 scale full size and the first gen Tundra was a 7/8 scale. It wasn’t until 2007 with the release of the second gen Tundra that Toyota released an actual full size truck. It seems they were so obstinate about selling us what they thought we needed vs what we actually wanted that it took them three tries to get it right. Nissan managed it on the first try but now they’re gone, so who knows.
PS. It recently occurred to me that Toyota is the last remaining full line auto make. At least since the domestics have abandoned so many market segments. Maybe something should be written about that?
Honda?
I’m going to have to say no. They don’t offer a full size truck (Tundra) which is obviously a HUGE market here. Or a full size SUV (Sequoia) for that matter. Or a sports car or coupe of any kind (86, Supra). Or any real truck based SUVs or trucks that Toyota has a few to choose from. Or a large car, that Toyota still offers the Lexus LS. They’re close, but not quite. Nissan had been there with a full range of sedans, CUVs, sports coupe, full size truck SUV, van, minivan, and even small delivery van. I find it notable that it wasn’t that long ago that all three big domestic were full line automakers and now none of them are.
Toyota had the Avalon as a large car for years, it is now the Crown.
The obstinace seems true of their minivans too. The Previa was a global product and everyone was trying different minivan formats still, but the first Sienna was a tweener size between the two lengths of Chrysler vans, closer to Chrysler’s earlier Grands.
Maybe it was limitations of scaling up the Camry platform, but I have to think that Toyota knew during Sienna development that by the time it would be on sale, most vans would be larger than theirs. It seemed to be known during Windstar development that the Ford was going to be larger than the then-current Chryslers, and it launched early ’94. Plus Honda was working on a proper larger Odyssey at the same time.
I like the smaller form factor, but a harder sell when it costs the same or more.
I had a used T100 for a few years, great truck, typically bulletproof Toyota reliability. I sold it to by brother inlaw when it got pretty rusty and “upgraded” to a much newer Frontier, which turned out to be a reliability nightmare.
He drove it for a couple years, and then sold it to his brother (after I’d already ditched my wildly unreliable Frontier), who drove if for a few more years, rolling it twice. I think it was the second rollover that finally killed it, well after 200k miles.
Would absolutely buy one again, even if it wasn’t very powerful.
Toyota sells Hilux in my country, the current generation cannot be described as compact, with every new model they increase the size, now Hilux is larger than first gen Tacoma, Toyota needs to make a new compact pick-up.
I spent a bit of time in one of those. Just seemed like a Japanese Dakota to me; didn’t really seem full size at all.
My dad had a ‘95 Regular cab / long bed with a four banger and a stick, as base model as could be (vinyl seats, hand crank windows). Must have had it 20 years, well over 200k miles.
Such an unusual truck by today’s standards – but that truck was super versatile, dependable, and put in a ton of work.