Motor Trends Todd Lassa discusses the 2007 Toyota Tundra at the 2006 Chicago Auto Show...
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00:00 At the 2006 Chicago Auto Show, Toyota rolled out their largest pickup to date, the all-new
00:16 Tundra.
00:17 Motor Trend's Todd Lassa has the story.
00:20 Toyota has always used the Chicago show for pickup trucks, showing you trucks including
00:26 the Tacoma, which was our truck of the year a couple of years ago.
00:29 The current generation Tundra is considered a 7/8 scale American style pickup truck, so
00:36 they've been trying to become the right size and now they've done it in a big way.
00:42 It's a very big bolt design, but also somewhat Toyota in that it's rounded out, its edges
00:48 are softened a bit.
00:50 This truck is a bit larger than a current F-150 in just about every dimension.
00:54 It's got a 142.5 inch wheel base and the extra cab is 10 inches longer than the current model.
01:04 It has a towing capacity of more than 10,000 pounds and it comes available with three engines.
01:10 The base engine is a V6, but the move up then is to a 4.7 liter V8.
01:16 Then there's the new iForce 5.7 liter V8 that Toyota says will be best in class, very low
01:22 emissions and while it's not talking horsepower and torque yet, we happen to know it's going
01:27 to be about 330 horsepower, maybe a little bit more, and about 375 pound feet of torque.
01:33 When you consider engines, bed size up to an 8 foot bed, three trim levels, base SR5
01:40 and limited, plus the various cab configurations that you'll have more than 30 variations available.
01:46 Where else do you go to design a pickup truck than in Texas?
01:49 We built a new assembly plant there that will have capacity starting the first full year
01:54 of about 200,000 trucks, which is considerably more than what they've been building so far.
01:59 They want to show that they're an American company, even though the name's Toyota.
02:02 The Tundra we thought would be available by the end of the year as a 2007 model.
02:07 Now Toyota's talking about it being available within a year, probably 11 months, which places
02:12 it's in January.
02:13 So it looks like it's going to be a 2008 model.
02:15 In fact, that's what Jim Press told me up on the stand a few hours ago.
02:19 (upbeat music)
02:22 (static)