Zander Drives Cars

I hate the whole “everything was better back in the old days!” rhetoric. For the most part, whatever someone is referring to is most likely some form of baloney recycled to make themselves look correct. That being said, the statement that Toyota lost its weirdness is completely correct. At least, it was correct. Because out of the blue, they got it back again; sort of.

The death of the MR2 in 2004 was the end of Toyota’s weird era. The decade and a half prior brought us everything from now-overrated sports cars like the Supra to mid-engined minivans like the Previa. Even their relatively standard cars had a touch of “weird”. It wasn’t uncommon to find base model Tercels and Corollas with colorful patterned fabric seats, or the gullwing doors on the JDM (ugh) Sera. But back to the MR2. After the cheap, mid-engined, no trunk or drunk sports car ceased production, Toyota was left with… well… not a lot. Yea, they had the Celica and the FJ Cruiser, but the Celica had lost its shine, and the FJ Cruiser was just a 4Runner with a Tonka body. So, for the next 15 years or so, Toyota soldiered on making very good, but very boring cars.

But then, out of the blue, something happened. After almost a decade of not having any sports cars in their lineup, in 2012, Toyota announced the GT86 (Scion FR-S for us Yanks). This was great, but one sports car isn’t going to bring Toyota out of the pits of boredom. So, they played their trump card and brought back the Supra, which regardless of your opinions on the car, was a great way to get some interest in the brand. Great, okay, cool, that was one step to trying to restore Toyota’s weirdness: bring back to the fun stuff. But what about the weird stuff? What about the products that might not be very fun, but are at least a little head-scratchingly strange.

Well, what about the Mirai? “The what?” you may be asking. The Mirai, you know, that hydrogen car that they could only sell in California that was impossible to buy and cost like, $50,000? I mean, it might not be ridiculous, but that must be “weird”, right? Well, Toyota must have seen this and said “Fine. You want weird? We’ll give you weird.” and then they gave us the Crown. In the US, we never really got the Crown. It was around for a couple years in the 70s, but aside from that, we had Lexus to sell us Toyota luxury cars. But now, oh now we have the crown. It is a lifted sedan? A sedan crossover? And it’s luxury? Okay, sure. That’s weird.

And then the weird kept coming. There’s the Camry and Avalon TRD, which are basically just V6 XSE models that drove through the TRD workshop. They both look weird and are weird. Then there’s the GR Corolla which is a Corolla with a 3-cyl turbocharged engine making over 300 hp. We also have the bZ4x, which while not a very good EV, is certainly weird. Don’t believe me? Look at that interior. And don’t even get me started on the new Prius. It’s a Prius, and it looks like that! Woah! Plus, we’re (at the time of writing) a couple weeks away from the reveal of the next Tacoma, which is supposed to both be a hybrid AND have a manual transmission? C’mon. How are we not seeing this weirdness?

Look: all of us car-people do is complain about the death of the interesting and the birth of the mundane. But, if we took a step back from our screens and maybe, just maybe, looked at some of the cars on the road, the cars that sit on dealer lots today, we might just be able to recognize the lengths automakers are going to make their products interesting, or “weird”, whatever you may constitute that as, at least. Just recognize it in any capacity, please.

All photos not taken by me are taken from Toyota Newsroom and used within the limits set by Toyota for fair use.