Ten Years After: The 2020 Toyota 4Runner 4X4 TRD PRO

2020 Toyota 4Runner 4X4 TRD PRO.

Ten years.  A decade.  A tenth of a century.  That's how long ago I wrote my first review of this generation of the Toyota 4Runner. We were in a recession then.  People, short on money, houses being repossessed at record rates, seemed unlikely to buy a bigger, beefier version of what started out as an SUV based on a compact pickup.

By 2014, it was clear that I had called it wrong, underestimating the American driving public's love for bigger, better and beefier.  And looking over my notes, I see that I also reviewed the 4Runner in 2015 and 2016---by which point, I was saying things like "if it ain't broke, don't fix it."

Unbroken. Unbreakable: The 2016 Toyota 4Runner Trail

The 2016 Toyota 4Runner Trail.

The old saying goes "If it ain't broke, don't fix it".  Fortunately, Toyota has heard the old saying and the 2016 Toyota 4Runner Trail is proof that they take it to heart.

Happy Trail: The 2015 Toyota 4Runner 4X4 Trail Premium

The 2015 Toyota 4Runner 4X4 Trail Premium.

Toyota's 4Runner is one of the few real truck-based SUVs left in its size and price class.  Most of the others, the Nissan Pathfinder among them, have become car-based crossovers.  In the face of this, Toyota has done something I find very admirable. It has embraced its inner and outer truck, and introduced a model that reminds us of the 4Runner's original mission from when it was introduced 30 years ago.

UPDATE: How The World Has Caught Up With The 2014 Toyota 4Runner

The 2014 Toyota 4Runner.

Four years ago in this space, I wrote a review of the Toyota 4Runner in which I quoted Casey Kasem's most famous outtake, linked to Sajeev Mehta's piece in The Truth About Cars comparing it to fat Elvis and basically said the 4Runner was going the wrong way for the times.

Well, times change.  That was written in the aftershocks of the 2008 crash, and while there has by no means been a complete recovery and gas prices are higher now (the Sacramento average for a gallon of regular as I write this is $4.11), the world has continued to spin and Americans have, as they always have, adapted, adjusted and bought as large as their credit scores would allow. In those intervening four years, I have driven an additional 200-plus new vehicles and, in the current landscape, the 4Runner no longer seems out of place.

Mind you, I still think Toyota is slicing the SUV spectrum mighty thin with RAV4, FJ, Highlander, 4Runner, Sequoia and Land Cruiser...but (apart from the FJ, which is in its last season) it seems to be working.

Toyota 4Runner Review

Well, 4Runner sure turned out to be a prophetic name, didn't it? The Toyota 4Runner was one of the earliest SUVs...little more than a 2-door pickup truck with an enclosed bed and a second row of seats at first, it morphed into the prototype for the SUV as we know it, and opened the gates for a flood of imitators.

As bigger and bigger and still bigger became better, the 4Runner got written off by a lot of SUV buyers as "small". Now, with the memory of $4.25 a gallon fresh in our minds, the 4Runner looks like a reasonably-sized machine.

A week in the newest 4Runner recently reinforces that view...suddenly, the 4Runner is right-sized...five people won't feel cramped, there's room for whatever you need to haul (within reason), and unlike dozens of soft-roaders, the 4Runner is the real deal...if you want to go off-roading, it's more than capable. Plus, you can load one up with all the options and still stay on this side of 40 grand.

As the amateurs and posers leave the SUV market, the people who truly need and use them will be making intelligent choices about what to buy...and the Toyota 4Runner makes a strong case for itself.