Toyota Redesigns Its Small Car Toyota has revamped its subcompact Yaris for 2012. An overhaul was needed since the Yaris was not doing very well in the small-car market. The new version is slightly bigger, and fresh looking inside and out. But did Toyota do enough to get the Yaris out of the doldrums? The [...]
Small Changes Improve Camry You can hardly blame the Toyota designers for not making the 2012 Camry radically different. The Camry has been the best-selling car in the U.S. for 13 of the last 14 years, and nobody wants to take a chance of rocking the boat. However, the 2012 Camry is not a carbon [...]
More Space, Slightly Less Fuel Economy Toyota executives beamed as they introduced the new Prius station wagon to auto journalists on historic Cannery Row in Monterey, California. This new model is called the Prius v–the “v” standing for versatility, rather than the Roman numeral five. The v is the first of three new Prius models [...]
Aging Avalon Gets A Facelift The current generation Avalon has been around now for nearly six years. That’s a long time for a car to go unchanged—people get tired of seeing the same-old, same-old. So, Toyota designers did something about this with the 2011 model by giving it a facelift and upgrading the interior. The [...]
Redesigned Sienna Impresses It’s not easy to design a stylish minivan. Nissan tried it a few years ago with the Quest, and it turned out to be a flop. Now, Toyota has taken a crack at putting some style in its 2011 Sienna, and I got mixed reactions to my test car. Some liked the [...]
A Sporty Minivan? Can a minivan be sporty? Toyota thinks so. The Japanese automaker is offering a sport model of its redesigned 2011 Sienna called the SE. The SE is one of five versions of an expanded Sienna lineup. The new Siennas, even the base model LE, have a sportier look this year. (Toyota’s Calty [...]
Off-Road Better Than On-Road How times have changed. Back in the 1990s, truck-based SUVs, like the 4Runner were all the rage—everybody wanted one. Today, most people opt for the car-based “Crossovers,” like the Toyota Highlander. However, there are those who still prefer the traditional “go anywhere” sport/ute. For these folks, Toyota has a redesigned 2010 [...]
Better Than Ever You have to hand it to Toyota—they have taken what was the state-of-the-art hybrid car and made it even better. If you liked the last Prius, you are going to love the new one. Toyota has improved its most popular hybrid in almost every way, and added a number of high-tech options. [...]
A Tweener Whenever there’s a gap in the Toyota lineup, you can be sure that it won’t last for long. The product planners get all over it, and a new vehicle pops up. Such is the case with the 2009 Toyota Venza. According to Toyota spokesman, Ron Zeinstra, the Venza is designed to appeal to [...]
Highlander Hybrid Offers Better Gas Mileage The redesigned 2008 Highlander doesn’t look a lot different than its predecessor, but it’s bigger, more powerful and comes with more features. Toyota made the’08 Highlander four inches longer, three inches wider and an inch taller than the old model. It also gave the new Highlander a longer platform [...]
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