It’s a new year and TRD Pro fans know what that means: A new signature color.
Solar Octane, Army Green, Voodoo Blue: These are just three TRD Pro colors we’ve had over the past several years. Now that we’re rolling into the 2024 model year, Toyota announced its brand new signature hue for all the TRD Pro models — naturally highlighted by the recently revealed Tacoma. This time around, we’re getting a deeper orange color the automaker calls “Terra”.
This is the third orange (or orange-ish) color over the TRD Pro’s run, after 2015’s Inferno and 2023’s Solar Octane. To my mind, it’s a bit odd that Toyota introduced a similar signature for two consecutive years as they tend to cycle between several different colors. However, if you thought Solar Octane was a bit too loud for your taste, perhaps this will be a better option if you’re still in the market for a new Toyota truck or SUV.
While Toyota used the new Tacoma to debut the Terra exterior option (as you’d expect, it is a brand new truck), you’ll be able to spec this color across the whole TRD Pro range. That means you can also get it for the Tundra, as well as the Sequoia and 4Runner SUVs.
On that note…
What today’s news says (or at least implies) about the 4Runner
In the flurry of debut news around Toyota’s full-size offerings and the brand-new Tacoma, things have been suspiciously quiet for the aging 4Runner. I’ve been even more curious about its fate lately, as its luxury counterpart, the Lexus GX, just debuted its comprehensive redesign.
The 2024 Lexus GX packs some decisive changes that move it farther away from the mainstream 4Runner, particularly with respect to its Tundra and Sequoia-derived twin-turbocharged V6 powerplant. While it would be amazing for Toyota to take the same approach with the 4Runner, I think it’s extremely unlikely they’ll actually go that route.
Why? Because we’re also going to get a new (supposedly North America specific) Land Cruiser. Rather than the full-on 300 Series marking the nameplate’s triumphant return after the last generation rolled into the history books, the consensus at the moment is that Toyota will model a smaller SUV on the 2024 Lexus GX 550. That should make it more affordable than three-row we could buy — the Sequoia would ostensibly fill that market gap moving forward, in this scenario — but that means we could also see a fundamentally different 4Runner when Toyota gets around to launching one.
That is, if they decide to launch one at all. Some folks argue a smaller Land Cruiser’s arrival leaves too little market gap for two full-size SUVs in the same lineup.
I disagree: The 4Runner may indeed still have a space filling out the $40,000 to $60,000-ish end of Toyota’s truck-based SUV range. To that end, the most likely outcome (in my opinion, I want to stress) is for Toyota to build a new 4Runner more closely related to the 2024 Tacoma. The new 4Runner will still ride on the automaker’s GA-F platform, as all its body-on-frame trucks do, but would use a 2.4-liter turbocharged inline-four engine to replace its ancient 4.0-liter V6.
We’ll have to wait and see what happens over the coming months. For the 8,000 or so of you who still buy a 4Runner every month, though, Toyota’s Terra announcement is a sign that we’ll be sticking with the N280/fifth-generation version for at least one more model year.
