Why Toyota Is Building Tacomas With ‘Fake’ Rear Doors

See the truck in the image above? Its rear doors aren’t actually doors. That’s right, the Access Cab Toyota Tacoma, which followed the same formula of extended cabs that have existed for decades — that formula being that the front doors open normally, and the shortened rear doors hinge from the rear like suicide doors — is dead. And replacing it is a lookalike with not only no rear doors, but also no rear seats. It’s bizarre, but I spoke with the Tacoma’s Chief Engineer Sheldon Brown, and he explained his company’s rationale.

In the automotive world, there are two types of engineers who show up to media days: Those who have strict “messaging” guidelines from which they refuse to deviate, and those far too nerdy to stick to those guidelines. I recall being at the Ford Mustang Mach-E’s launch event, and when I asked basic questions like the battery cell geometry, Ford engineers literally told me “sorry, that’s not part of our messaging.” Weird stuff. Meanwhile, at the Porsche Taycan’s technical showcase in Atlanta, and the VW MEB electric platform’s in Germany, engineers were willing to tell me the real story, or at least what felt like the real story.

And the real story means compromise. That’s what engineering is. Anytime an engineer tells you that every decision improved the product, you know they’re bullshitting you. The true development story behind a vehicle involves sacrificing some things to make improvements to other things. So yes, that means you have to admit you sacrificed some things, which can be a challenge for some automakers. But again, that’s literally how engineering works.

That’s what I like about VW and Porsche engineers; they’re often nerds who will just tell you “Yeah, we had to sacrifice X in order to improve Y.” That’s also why I’m a fan of Sheldon Brown from Toyota (and his predecessor, Mike Sweers); while, like all engineers at media events, I’m sure he had some messaging guidelines, and of course he had to slant most things in a positive way (I’m not convinced that bolts are the right fastener for an air dam that’s meant to be easily removed), he comes off as a nerd who’s just gonna tell you how the truck was engineered, compromises and all.

That hideous air dam at the front of the truck? Did he pretend that it looked good? Hell no, he admitted that he wasn’t a fan. I know some automakers who would have a fit if one of its team members said that on the record. I respect it. When I asked about why the new truck’s leaf springs are so low to the ground, he readily admitted that the chassis had been built with coil springs in mind, and that they had to adapt it to make the leaf springs work — leaf springs that were primarily offered as a low-cost option for consumers. There was no pretending that it was perfect: It was a compromise to make two different suspensions work with he same frame. When I asked about why the manual transmission’s redline was so low, he told me there were some noise and vibration issues, and lowering the redline was basically the easiest way to fix them.

It was the same thing with this new XtraCab truck. It’s there to be cheap, and the rear doors don’t open in order to save Toyota (and the customer, theoretically) money, as it takes quite a few resources to develop rear-hinged doors that meet American safety requirements.

“We noticed that as the market continued to grow, all the expansion was happening in the double cab…we took a specific look at our customers who were still buying the access cab, and most of them were buying them with rear seat delete — more than 50 percent,” Brown told me. “So we recognized that, hmm, our customers aren’t necessarily hauling people, they’re hauling goods and tools and things they need in their everyday life.”

So, in order to still offer a cheap Tacoma, the team brought back leaf springs, and began looking at building a regular cab long-bed (well, 6-foot bed) truck, but decided to add a bit more storage.

“Candidly as we see regulations increase … side impact becomes increasingly difficult to meet … so we did look at the rear hinge door. Of course we lose all the structure of the B-Pillar … which means we need to really truly reinforce the upper structure of the roof and the rocker panel, which meant that we were going to have to carry the structure across all of our frames in terms of not just the access cab but our double-cabs as well,” he told me, saying there are some common structural bits across all Tacomas, and forcing that added weight into the higher-volume Double-Cab didn’t make a ton of sense to his team. (Note: I think he probably meant “body” and not “frames,” there).

He said getting an Access cab to pass side-impact safety tests meant beefing up doors, hinges, and latches. “As a result of that we were adding a lot of cost and a lot of mass to the overall cabin,” he told me. “So we thought OK, let’s go back to a [regular] cab and maybe we can offer that as a value proposition.” Toyota refers to a regular cab as a “B-Cab.”

Instead, they came up with what you see here — a vehicle that looks a lot like the old Access Cab.

“Our development theme was B-Max. Basically think of it like a B-cab [regular cab] … but basically extend this area and utilize it for … functional storage.” So that’s what Toyota has built; if you think of it as an access cab, you will be sorely disappointed. The rear “doors” don’t open, and there are no seats. But if you think of it as a regular cab, you’ll either A. Be delighted by the additional storage or B. Hate the fact that you lose the regular cab look and you still don’t get rear seats.

In any case, that’s what Toyota has done, here — basically offered an extended regular cab. And Brown readily admits that there are compromises. “As you can see … that rear area … becomes increasingly less efficient in terms of getting people in and out,” hence why the team didn’t bother with rear seats. Even in terms of getting stuff into and out of the rear area, not having doors is a bummer, and Brown told me straight up: “We’re giving up some functionality when you don’t have the door.”

Still, he showed me how one would get larger things in the back — basically, you just fold the front seats forward like you would on a coupe:

In the rear, there are actually some clever storage areas. In fact, that’s the one thing about this “B-Max” or “XtraCab” that I quite like: cubbies. Lots of them. There’s a big one at the very rear of the cab — one that I call the “shotgun storage bin.” Check it out:

See the silver handle at the top? It stretches all the way across the truck, and is similar to a mechanic’s tool-box drawer handle, even featuring a lock:

Check out the room inside, including a pegboard so you can create your own custom rack:

Also back there on the floor are two bins:

The one on the driver’s side is a rather large and could easily fit a small backpack or laptop:

The passenger’s side bin has a car jack in it, but still has a bit of room for some stuff:

Off to the left of that bin is a little storage cubby at the base of the gigantic B-pillar-that-looks-like-a-door:

There’s a similar bin on the other side:

Up front, the passenger’s seat folds completely flat, and features rather strong tie-downs. I was surprised by how little slop there is once the seatback is folded down — it is a firm place to tie things down:

In addition, there are all the other storage bins found in every new Taco. There’s the one below the passenger’s side airbag, just above the glovebox:

There are the cubbies on the center tunnel, including the deep slot to the right of the shifter, the phone-holder ahead of the shifter, and the cupholder behind the shifter:

There’s another cupholder behind the center console, whose cubby under the armrest isn’t particularly large or deep:

There’s this little cube-shaped hole to the right of the steering column for your … caramels, I guess:

And there are the door pockets:

I also noted this storage … thing on the driver’s side, though I can’t remember what it’s for:

“Most of our competitors have gotten rid of this altogether,” Brown told me in reference to a cab configuration that isn’t a crew cab. And he’s right. The new Chevrolet Colorado is only offered with a Crew Cab, short box. The new Ford Ranger? Only offered with a Crew cab. Same thing with the Jeep Gladiator.

Of course, there is still the Nissan Frontier holding it down for extended-cab (or “King Cab”) lovers. There’s no doubt Toyota could have just plunked down the cash and figured the rear door thing out, and on some level, this does seem lazy. But like Sheldon Brown admits, it was a cost thing. With so few folks buying extended cabs, and even fewer using the rear for seating, his team decided it made sense to cheapen the truck as much as possible. It still ain’t cheap at $31,500 plus destination, but that’s about what trucks are going for these days, and the Taco is the one with the best reputation. People will buy it regardless.