2005 Toyota Sequoia Preview

Shaking Up the SUV Market

The Sequoia is oh-so-smooth. This is a truck-based SUV?

Lately you might have heard some whining coming out of Detroit.

Executives there are complaining that Toyota is getting too much applause for making the gasoline-electric hybrid Prius while the area for real growth (i.e., profit) at Japan's largest carmaker hasn't been in fuel-sipping cars at all -- but in gas-guzzling trucks and sport-utility vehicles.

And the whining?

Ah, well that's what we call "spin." See, the only profit and growth at the Big Three is also coming in gas-guzzling trucks and SUVs, and they're red-faced that the Japanese have suddenly turned their attention to not only demolishing Detroit's sales lead, but also have big (really big) plans to take on the domestics where they burn their oil -- in the full-size truck and SUV market.

In fact, that takeover plan is already in full swing: Witness the RAV4, 4Runner, Sequoia, Highlander, Land Cruiser, Tacoma and Tundra. Throw in the Lexus RX330, GX470 and LX470. At Nissan, note the brand-new, seven- or eight-passenger Pathfinder Armada, full-size Titan pickup, and revamped Xterra and Frontier about to debut. And don't count out Honda; they sell every Acura MDX they can make (ditto the Pilot and CR-V) and are coming with their own pickup-ette soon. What does all this spell? Bad, bad, news if you're a domestic carmaker. (A point of clarification: Nissan, Honda, and Toyota make nearly all of their SUVs in this country and Canada, not in foreign plants; that matters because these companies, although foreign-based, employ tens of thousands of Americans.)

Then again, any American can own stock in these Japanese makers, and of course you can buy their vehicles. So if you're not an executive at a Detroit-based carmaker, maybe the doom and gloom talk should just stop. And so should the whining. Ford, General Motors and DaimlerChrysler need to sink or swim on their own merits. And in fact the best of each of these companies is represented in their truck and SUV lineups. The new F-150 is a great vehicle, perhaps the best pickup ever made. The all-new Dodge Durango is quite impressive as well, especially considering that the last vehicle with that name on it was completely wretched. And if you must drive a titanic SUV, you really can't beat a Suburban for ease of use and passenger hauling.

The problem is that the competition from Japan is fearsome, and to match products like the $35,155 SR5 4x4 Toyota Sequoia, the vehicle reviewed here, GM, Ford and Chrysler still have to work on overcoming the perception that they can't match their rivals on quality and refinement. And on those fronts, in fact, there's a lot of truth -- only Ford these days is showing clear signs of improving interiors to the point where they can at least claim to rival what's coming out from their foreign rivals.

But we're here to tell you that there's more to the formula than just closely fitting plastic seams on the dashboard and hushed cabin noise. What else? Keep reading.