-
For more information on how to avoid pop-up ads and still support SkiTalk click HERE.
The GRAND Highlander
- Thread starter snwbrdr
- Start date
I feel like it needs a rack in the front..
Gaun yerself!!!!
Gaun yerself!!!!
Canyonero!
The marketing mumbo-jumbo and self important pomposity of the people in the video takes away from the vehicle.
I think is a nice looking vehicle. I like a lot about it.
overweight lovechild that ate Happy Meals for a year.
Do you feel that?? That what they call the quickening...
I’d say it is to compete with the Kia Telluride, but really to address what has been a huge gap just about forever in the overall auto market.
What is somewhat groundbreaking here is that (at least according to one video review I’ve seen) is it has more cubic feet of storage space than the Sequoia and almost as much as the Sienna (seats down).
The manufacturers have long avoided cannibalizing their SUVs by either making minivans AWD standard with a bit more ground clearance or their CUVs actual full size.
This addresses a pretty simple issue that the vast majority of full size SUVs are purchased for their cargo hauling capacity without being limited to a 2WD vehicle, but the core towing and ‘work’ aspects of the truck are never used by the owner who as a trade off suffers reduced handling, increased maintenance costs, and poor fuel economy.
I think Toyota recognizes a few thing here (finally).
1) it is never going to sell the Sequoia in high volume numbers, which is why it is now one vehicle in a broader global platform and the Land Cruiser is gone in North America.
2) No matter how much minivans make sense, they are stigmatized and it doesn’t make sense for anybody with an actual winter season to drive a 2WD vehicle.
3) CUVs can have overly aggressive body lines just like SUVs and there is nothing that forces the CUV to be smaller than the SUV.
Put the turbo 4 cyl in this platform, make it a hybrid, and sell every single one you can produce. We don’t need this with the Ascent, but it probably would have been tops on our list at the time if it had been available.
As my wife said when I showed it to her: “I love it.”
- Joined
- Dec 20, 2015
- Posts
- 8,474
If Toyota would put this powertrain into the Sienna AWD and make the second row seats removable, I'd be turning cartwheels.
You know, if I knew how to do that.
I imagine this will be very hard to come by. These things really aren’t for dudes, they are for women who have been buying large body on frame SUVs forever for family and gear hauling.
Mid-size CUVs are a bit too small for big family hauling. The Telluride is such a smash hit - it wins every vehicle competition it is entered into by every auto publication - that everybody is going flood this space. People were paying $20K over MSRP for Tellurides with reports you couldn’t even get a test drive without signing a document that you are willing to pay significantly over MSRP, that can’t be lost on anybody (COVID notwithstanding).
Toyota is rightly positioning the large family SUV as oriented to the outdoors set because the full size CUV is going to eat sales out of that 3 ton highway hauler 4x4 that never sees dirt in its entire life.
The fact that this can be had in a reasonably efficient car platform using a 4 cyl engine platform is thoroughly ground breaking. The V8 has always been the gatekeeper and those engines are being relegated to history for general purpose family use.