There is no drug quite like nostalgia because it’s a drug that no two people experience the same way. A bite of Count Chocula is just surgary cereal to my daughter, but to me it’s a time machine that takes me back to my own childhood. Marcel Proust had it right. Also, Proust would have driven the ever-lovin’ crap out of this two-door Toyota.
The automaker says the 4Runner TRD Surf Concept “draws inspiration from an iconic time in history when the Toyota 4Runner became a staple at 80s So-Cal beaches, as surfers sought the perfect wave.” If you were a surfer in that period and that geography maybe it means something to you. It does not to me.
What the 4Runner represents to me, more than anything, was a time when you could actually get a two-door SUV. Because an SUV didn’t have to be a vehicle for everyone it was expected back then that the base option for one of these trucks was the omission of the rear doors.
More than anything, the success of the Ford Explorer and the shift from SUV-as-truck to SUV-as-family-wagon killed the two-door model. It was too much money and too much time to build one for too few customers. The same is starting to happen with actual pickup trucks.
We need to go back to building two-door SUVs and Toyota is the perfect automaker to do it.
We Are At An Undesirable Moment In History
The period leading up to 2020 could have been the apotheosis of car choice in the ICE era. There were a large number of models available, in various configurations, giving consumers a Golden Corral’s worth of options.
Just looking at the sixth-generation S550 Ford Mustang you could walk out with a convertible V6 automatic cruiser, an EcoBoost 2.3-liter inline-four fastback set up for track duty, and any number of V8s producing up to 760 horsepower. The Toyota Camry at various points was available as a coupe, a convertible, a sedan, and a wagon.
But, somewhere in the late teens, automakers started shifting money to electric cars. The assumption was that electrification would be a must and therefore it would be undesirable to make a lot of different small platforms given the investment that was necessary.
Toyota didn’t quite fall into this trap and instead focused more on offering various powertrains, especially hybrids, but it too fell victim to some lineup oversimplification. It’s in this period that we witnessed the death of sedans/cars/coupes from most automakers and the obliteration of other fun niche models. At no point in my career can I remember fewer interesting submodels than right now in North America. Remember when Mercedes-Benz used to make a coupe and convertible version of basically everything? Now the coupes have been rationalized down to the CLE Cabriolet and SL Roadster (itself the merger of two vehicle lines).
I hate this. I super hate this. Eventually, electrification and extremely modular platforms might lead to a neo-Cambrian era of model explosion like we’re seeing in China, but that’s many years away.
Until then, it’s boring and I’m not even sure it’s great business.
Why?
Toyota reported that its sales, though up significantly this year, were down year-over-year in October by 8.0%. This is due to a number of factors, but the highest among them is the stop-sale of the Grand Highlander and Lexus TX equivalents. These were supposed to be key vehicles for the automaker, but a pesky recall has kept them from being sold and hampered sales.
Is simplifying the lineup so much that you produce too many versions of the same vehicle actually a risk? The costs of engineering a bunch of vehicles on the same platform under the same nameplate are definitely high, but automakers are already spending that money to extend platforms. There’s probably a diminishing return on building and marketing (also expensive) niche models, but if we can have five two-row SUV/crossovers (RAV4, Corolla Cross, Crown Signia, 4Runner, Venza) and four three-row SUV/crossovers (Land Cruiser, Highlander, Highlander Max, Sequoia) from Toyota isn’t there room for at least one of these?
Back in the ’90s and ’00s you could get a two-door Pathfinder, Navajo, Explorer, Tahoe, Yukon, Vehicross, Amigo, Freelander, Trooper, and even a two-door 4Runner. Given that essentially all of those vehicles are gone, perhaps now is the time to get all of that untapped market.
The Actual TRD Surf Concept Is Cool
That was all a bit of an aside as the actual TRD Surf Concept, which will be at SEMA next week, is pretty rad as the kids don’t say.
Toyota started with a 2025 4Runner TRD Limited equipped with the iForce 2.4-liter turbo motor, so already there’s 278 horsepower and 317 lb-ft of torque on hand, all put down via a full-time 4WD system and an electronically controlled dual-range transfer case. From a powertrain perspective, the only real upgrade is a custom exhaust.
The suspension gets a little more work with custom front axles, billet aluminum front upper and lower A-arms, and the rear-end housing from a Tundra. All of this is connected to custom 17-inch wheels supporting 37-inch tires.
To be a “surf” truck the first thing that has to go is the roof and, from there, the logic is quite clear. To take the roof off you don’t want a set of rear doors to deal with so those got tossed and a custom-built top was created. I’m glad they didn’t try to make a four-door convertible because those usually look wrong when built using modern vehicles.
A shortened version of the 4Runner, complete with bigger flared fenders and a roll hoop just feels right. There’s no cognitive leap necessary to accept this as exactly what an SUV should be. And while the little surfing touches like the waterproof interior and retro graphics are fun, no part of this seems impossible for a brand like Toyota to engineer.
I suppose one might argue that you can just build an SR5 Xtra Cab 4×4 that approximates a lot of this utility, it doesn’t look as cool. Nothing looks quite as cool as this.
There are a lot of SEMA concepts from a lot of automakers that probably shouldn’t be built and I have no real belief that Toyota is going to do anything other than trot this around for a year, relegate it to a basement, and crush it because that’s what always happens.
I’m an optimist. I am audacious enough to have hope. Maybe if enough people respond positively to this concept Toyota will do what others have been afraid to do and give us a real, honest-to-goodness two-door SUV.
It’s kinda cool, but this would be the FJ Cruiser all over again. They’d sell well the first year or two, then sales would tank. FJ Cruiser sales numbers were always abysmal compared to the same year Wrangler.
The front end is still ugly, too.
I wonder if they could dodge the chicken tax by selling it standard with fiberglass back wall, and making the full top and back seats dealer options
When I came back from Japan in late ’94 I was torn between buying a C1500 Extended Cab and a two-door Tahoe. The truck was a better deal at the time but I would still love to have that Tahoe.
The exhaust treatment (or lack thereof) is horrific.
Why make any of these when they can just crank out $60-80k SUVs that sell without having to take a single risk?
The target market for this wouldn’t have the income to support the 84 month loan required to buy it even if it came to market.
Sad, but very true. Much of the fun, niche model market is also the low-mid spec market. The kind of people that buy what they want & can afford, and drive it until the wheels fall off. Not only does that mean less profit margin on the initial sale, but also a lower likelihood of that customer trading up in five years or less. They may love the car, and it may build some brand loyalty, but the long term positives don’t make the short term bean counters happy. There’s a reason almost everything is mid to top trim, and some shade of re-sale grey.
Toyota please build a Maverick competitior with the RAV4 hybrid drivetrain or a 4runner (/taco) with an actual hybrid for efficiency. I wanna get my groceries and go to work on electric, and roadtrip/go camping on gas.
*fires up deathtrap Tercel*
I love the look of this thing and in an infinite resource environment, I’d get one (if it was produced). The issues, as I see them, is that (1) it would be expensive due to the deviation from the standard production line, and (2) “All of this is connected to custom 17-inch wheels supporting 37-inch tires”, so rough ride…
Even when I was still getting up at 5am to go surfing, I was not driving on the beach (I’m not sure this is allowed anywhere in California anymore), so I’d want this as a second car because I don’t want to shake my fillings loose just going to the grocery store. This means I’d want to buy a used one after resale value (hopefully) craters… but this also likely means that Toyota understands that sales would be low and won’t put this into production.
It sure is a cool looking truck though. I love it.
Economically speaking and in a void, yes, building more of the same brings those volume savings. But the logic is flawed: because it weren’t, building just one model per brand, nay, for the whole industry, would make sense, right?
Jeff Bezos thrived on identifying and monetizing the long tail of commerce: saturating small niches, but lots and lots of niches. The only catch was that they needed to invent a new way to sell things.
So maybe that’s what’s needed here too: simplify the builds, so you can offset the higher development costs. The particular 2-door in this article doesn’t match this model and the economics are probably not there yet. And also needed likely is some other manufacturing breakthrough, (casting? 3D printing?) so we can actually afford the niche things we all crave. I respect the Camry, but also loathe it.
This is among the reasons I believe EVs are something to be looked forward to.
The less complex a unified platform/drivetrain/HVAC package becomes – with FWD, RWD and AWD variants, and a couple different battery sizes – the lower their production costs. This makes it more cost-effective to easily engineer different bodystyles that will fit on these skateboard platforms – if a body style doesn’t sell in great numbers, who cares? There’s four or five others with the same tech, hardpoints, driver interface, dash & front seats which will make up the difference.
Manufacturing becomes more like American cars in the 40s and 50s – where you had a single platform, all wrapped up in 6 or 7 different related bodystyles using the same frame, drivetrain engineering, front clip, dash, front glass, seats, bumpers, etc.
It’s incredibly cruel that SUVs are now too successful to be interesting or cool or weird, because every resource that would go into a funky suv or truck could have made a boring one that some general manager is going to black out and put punisher skulls on instead
I have been waiting for y’all to post about this
I would pay all the money
We’re going to get all sorts of Toyota sports coupes…but they can’t do this?
Don’t hold your breath for a half dozen Toyota sports cars.
Well, truthfully, they were alleging it would take, what….a decade? So, you are, of course, correct
Regarding some market segments where there are no or only soon to be discontinued products:
Mini van for commercial use: Ford Transit Connect, Nissan NV200/Chevy Badge version / Ram Promaster City / Mercedes Metris?
Single cab/long bed small/midsize pickup (US Market)
I don’t get why at least one manufacture doesn’t have product in these classes, isn’t good to be the only player and own the market?
I just don’t understand Big Business.
“nobody else has one so nobody wants it”
Late Stage Capitalism Big Business is incredibly risk averse – because the real customers now are Shareholders, not the people who purchase their products.
But equally risky to produce a shit ton of something that may not sell, innit?
Yeah – because it will piss off your shareholders.
(See my earlier comment)
Because the projections aren’t based on total gains, but total losses. Even if it’s a shit product if it costs less to make but still sells at the same inflation adjusted price to the one that sold more volume you don’t lose per unit.
Look at theatrical movies for example: Aladdin 2019 had terrible viewership numbers as a total percentage of the population compared to Aladdin 1992, but access to a larger global market and charging almost three times as much to the theatres (not the viewers, the theatres themselves) meant it made twice as much as Aladdin 1992 before adjusting for inflation. After comparing initial budgets as a percentage of the final box office though? 2019 made less money than 1992 — $28,000,000 budget with $504,000,000 box office (5% total investment) versus $183,000,000 budget and $1,054,000,000 box office (17% total investment). They made less money and shrunk their own market by disappointing possible return customers, but they didn’t suffer higher losses and so considered the movie a success.
It’s the same thing with everything else nowadays. Be it a new iPhone 16 versus an iPhone 4, a new pair of Air Jordan 34s versus the original Air Jordan 1s, a fourteenth generation Ford F-150 versus a ninth generation Ford F-150, on and on and on. The economics of it all are fucked both short term and long term but financiers, investors, and trading algorithms all hate unpredictability far more than they hate collapse. And so instead of speculating on potential gains by entering new markets that might be able to grow they’ll instead fixate on eliminating losses by streamlining existing markets to the absolute limit, even if it means making the market continually shrink.
Yea, an approach finessed to the max in the last 30 years or so. I guess companies like Apple and Microsoft prove the long tail wrong, so until the tide changes, we’re stuck with blander and less products. Might as well have just a few brands and call it a day: companies helpfully named Car, Van, Stove, Phone and so on.
Sounds like the Soviet model economy/industry. Everything is exactly what it says on the tin, and there are no more than couple choices in any given market. You want a car? You go to the Volga Automobile Plant or the Gorky Automobile Plant. You want a gas stove? You buy one from the Gas Equipment Company.
This is the same thing that happened to the rail industry.
All of the small lines get cut so that rail can run only fast intermodal from point A to point B, with nothing in between. Stupid.
Small hatchbacks and sedans, too.
I have been BEGGING for this since I was a teenager. My dream truck is an 86-89 long travel. I very nearly cut the back of the cab out of my 05 and put a canopy on it. My wife talked me out of it last second
are those surfboards secure? Not very mahalo to have your board get wasted on ventura highway on your way to surf, my bro…
If this makes it to production it will be a TRD sticker pack for the 4runner. Thats all.
This is a tragically cynical and sad comment!
(and 100% accurate)
On further pondering I could see them doing neoprene seat covers, vinyl instead of carpet, and maybe a built-in vacuum to suck all the sand out of the interior that will never be 40 miles from a coastline.
I’m really surprised everyone’s letting the Wrangler and Bronco run free in that market space. Chevy keeps messing up the Blazer, Toyota’s Rav4 Actually started as a 2-door, the R used to be for Recreational!
Maybe Kia or Hyundai will give it some thought, make a 2-door Santa Cruz with a couple rear facing back seats all BRAT style.
Only if they can be manufactured in the US.
Because the Chicken Tax is still a thing.
The only factory in the world making the Santa Cruz is in Montgomery, Alabama. The Chicken Tax would be a non-issue in this case.
Oh – I didn’t realize that.
Yes, that’s a horse of a different color!
I love this, I hope it gets a lot of love at SEMA that forces them to really think about building a removable top 4runner again. I say this as my daily is a 1986 4runner with 255000 on the odometer. The Bronco proved that it is possible and worth it to build something cool when everything else is saying not to.
I’m 100% sure you meant to write ‘omission’ where the article reads ‘comission’!
and iForce 2.4 instead of Force 2.4
Grammerly really killing me today. Thank you!
I’m still wondering what surgery cereal is, is the Count doing surgery now?
please tell me you don’t really use that shit box program/app/plug-in
Once I figured out how to change it from British English to American English it worked pretty darn well for me. I stopped using it for privacy reasons (and because it didn’t work with some applications), but it did do its job.
I mean…which job was that? Its cost to academia is mind-blowing
What do you mean? Is there some evil to having a decent spellcheck that I’m unaware of (other than getting people accustomed to having it)?
I don’t know if you’re serious or not, so I’ll pretend that you are.
There have always been problems with originality in learning, and in the workplace. Nothing new. However, Grammarly and other such apps (there are a handful of truly “good” ones) add another layer of shenanigans.
To begin, I don’t think Grammarly’s bag is to create content out of whole cloth. Plenty of AI is out there that does that. However, Grammarly isn’t spell check. Grammarly takes what you give it and spins it using AI to create something that is not your own writing. At some point, depending on the level of intervention you allow, it ceases to be yours and is in fact AI-written.
I won’t argue about it’s value outside of education. However, in education, in any class at any level, ostensibly you need to be able to write well and communicate effectively on your own. In the workforce, you need to be able to create content that is in fact yours and not otherwise warehoused at some app’s location (accidentally). If you do nothing but use Grammarly to write and then roll into the workplace without that ability, it’s a problem for you.
And of course, schools at all levels should be teaching stuff. And I know they don’t all do that.
To conclude, every educational institution I am affiliated with, and any place worth what it’s charging, has a robust policy in place that forces students to write on their own, and helps them to fix their shortcomings.
Now that you mention it, I do recall that there were other tools in the Grammarly app (not the browser extension) that would check for plagiarism or give writing suggestions (like, “Hey this phrase is clunky. Consider the following:”), but I think that’s about as advanced as it was at the time, or at least as advanced as the free version was. For context, AI (Tangent: I loathe fonts that use a simplistic capital i/I. I’m talking about artificial intelligence, not a guy named Alan, or a bottle of steak sauce.) wasn’t a buzzword just yet when I last used it.
And to be certain, there are potential issues with that. But as you said, it depends on how you use it, and what you let it do. I treated those features more like handing in a first draft to a teacher and getting their feedback than as a crutch. Sometimes I did exactly what it said, other times I ignored it, or maybe I’d take the general idea but execute it differently, and so on. It helped me with the revision process, but it didn’t do it for me. But on the flip side, I can totally see where someone with weaker writing/revising skills (or just a pile of work to do and only so much time to do it) could very easily fall into the trap of letting software do the heavy lifting.
To put it another way, I remember Grammarly simply as a spellcheck because that’s mostly what it was to me, a browser extension that did spellcheck better than Microsoft & Firefox. I don’t think I used the app more than a handful of times, and even then, it was relatively tame.
Was the Commission of the Rear Doors like the 9/11 Commission? The Warren Commission? The Trilateral Commission? Has day-drinking amongst Autopian staff spread from west to East?
There’s not a chance in hell that Toyota will build this for the US market.
Because the Chicken Tax is still a thing.
It’s got four seats, so that lets it escape the pickup category.
2-door SUVs are considered “light trucks” by Customs, that ruling came in 1990 and was why all the 2-door Japanese SUVs were dropped within a couple years while the domestics ran the rest of their design cycles at minimum.
Thanks, I missed that.
give it one half door
Ask the Mini Clubvan how that went.
oh, don’t get me wrong, I agree, but I also agree that ALL BARRIERS TO THIS VEHICLE’S US ENTRY MUST BE REMOVED AT ALL COSTS
The TRD Surf is exactly what I want in a smallish truck. Of course that’s why Toyota won’t ever build it, or if they do they’ll screw it up by making it four doors and fixed roof. A manual trans would make it perfect, but I’d take a 2-door, flip top with auto, if I must.
I think Toyota’s ROX concept has a better chance of seeing the light of day, but that one doesn’t excite me at all.
I’ve seen too many enticing concept vehicles come and go and either never get built or get bastardized by corporate think (looking at you most recently Hyundai Santa Cruz).
The Wrangler 2-door has evolved into a fat warthog and Stellantis would love to kill it off, anyway. The Bronco 2-door is just too big and really only appeals to me in its Legacy trim. Toyota even spoiled the new Tacoma 2-door by dropping the manual as an option and it’s still too large for me anyway. Scout isn’t going to do it, either, no matter what they tease. Suzuki and Isuzu are likely never coming back and after seeing the Tasman, I don’t know what to expect from Kia. A new Subaru BRAT would be nice, but not the Baja, or more specifically, not just the Baja. The only company that might actually have the balls to build a new compact 2-door SUV for the US is probably Nissan, but they don’t have the cash or management.
So, it’s down to Toyota. Come on, be the leader for once and give 2-door aficionados a treat. Build the TRD Surf. Please.
You think a 2 door Bronco is too big? This is a full size 4 door SUV with the rear doors welded shut and a wider track width than stock.
What you want is a Bronco Sport with added inconvenience. I don’t know how the actual dimensions compare but even a Rav4 feels too big to be considered a compact SUV.
The Bronco is much larger than a Forerunner, which the Surf is based upon.
Length: The Bronco is up to 8 inches longer than the 4Runner (comparing 4-door to 4-door)
Width: The Bronco is up to 10 inches wider than the 4Runner
Height: The Bronco is up to 7 inches taller than the 4Runner
Wheelbase: The 4Runner’s wheelbase is 109.8 inches, while the Bronco’s is up to 116.1 inches
Ground clearance: The 4Runner’s ground clearance is 9.6 inches, Bronco 8.3 inches.
They didn’t release specs for the Surf except to say its track is 2 inches wider than the normal Forerunner, which still makes it much narrower than the Bronco. I tried to find out if the wheelbase was shorter in the Surf than the Forerunner, but it’s unclear. One write up said they’d chopped the Forerunner down to create the Surf, but included no details, so I take that with a large grain of salt.
I do agree with you that these smaller SUVs and trucks are not truly compact vehicles, which, for me, would be ideal. And the Bronco Sport is not body on frame, though if I’m honest with myself, the latest unibody designs can do everything I’d need an SUV or truck to do. So, not a deal killer. I do hate the Bronco Sport appearance, though.
You can watch a truncated behind-the-scenes 2 part video series on Toyota’s YT. Highly recommended if you’re interested in this project. Anyway, there was nothing in the videos to suggest they shortened the wheelbase.
To your original comment, this concept is longer than a 2 door Bronco with which you were comparing. And I’d like to see stats on the width of the body for a more apples to apples comparison. The removable fenders on the BoF Broncos add at least 8″ total width. Granted, if you removed them, the tires would still be sticking out.
But I’m with you. I’d be much more comfortable off-roading in a smaller vehicle. Best of both worlds is my dream of an old mini truck with solid axles and big tires like Dave Chapelle’s (not that one) MazGrande.
I’ll look for the video. I’ve found four more references that say the wheelbase on the Surf is shorter than the standard Forerunner, but again, no details so I can’t confirm it.
Mini trucks rule (except on the highway). Doubt I’ll ever see anything new that small again unless I move to another country.
What incentive does Toyota have to make this when they can’t keep any of their other SUVs in stock?
It all comes down to the numbers. There are potential buyers, like me, who will never buy a 4-door suv or truck. Rather buy old vehicles and rehab to get what I want than submit to the “you’ll get nothing and like it,” choices out there. I don’t want a “family car” SUV. Again, there has to be enough people like me for Toyota to go ahead with the Surf. I see a lot of enthusiasm across the internet, but that doesn’t always translate to customers, I know. Sure beats an ID Buzz all to hell for a fun design.
Agreed. I don’t want a 4 door SUV, at all. I also don’t want a Ford or Stellantis product. In terms of having 4 door haulers, I have an A6 Allroad and my wife has an XC90. We’ve got “family truckster” covered… I’m fortunate enough to want something like this as a 2nd car (although I’d want it at a used car price). I’d want it to go up camping with my boys, take some fun, larger local area road trips.
I think, however, I’m part of a very small market segment, which means this is very unlikely to be produced after Toyota analyzes some form of sales projections/focus group results…
Sadly, I think you’re right. We’re not likely to see this showrooms. Maybe after automakers become 100% automated the cost of building “boutique” cars will drop low enough to allow them to be be built for a reasonable price and anyone can have anything they want. And we’ll all drinking that free Bubble Up and eating that rainbow stew.
I can’t stand that my Fiesta ST is a 4-door. It’s such a little car, getting in and out of those Recaros through that tiny door is annoying.
Once 4 door sedans and even SUVs could be called “coupes” or Grand Coupes” there seemed to be no need to actually produce 2 door vehicles anymore.
Bad trend.
As a former first gen 4Runner owner, I approve. Especially since this does not have a 3.0 V6.
this is the way
What they need to do first is make the Manual Transmission available for the 2 Door Tacoma.
Why is it we can only get the manual transmission on the heavier vehicle?