Bucking Trend, Toyota Offers Less Fuel Efficient Trucks

Bucking Trend, Toyota Offers Less Fuel Efficient Trucks

By Scott Doggett, Contributor

Regular readers of Green Car Advisor know that the U.S. market for thirsty trucks has tanked.

Even Toyota's U.S. truck sales have taken repeated hits, falling 7.3 percent in the first five months of this year.

Just today Toyota Executive Vice President Tokuichi Uranishi told shareholders that the company is "struggling in the U.S. at the moment.'' Higher fuel prices and the subprime loan crisis have cut demand, he said.

So the last thing the Japanese automaker could be expected to do is offer more power and cost and lower fuel economy for three of its most fuel-hungry vehicles -- the full-size Tundra pickup, the midsize Tacoma pickup and the FJ Cruiser SUV -- but that's exactly what it just decided to do. Launched under the Ironman moniker, the vehicles are meant to draw on Toyota's involvement with Ivan "Ironman" Stewart, who as we all know raced Toyota trucks to an unprecedented 10 championships and 84 victories.

For only $20,000, buyers will soon be able to get any of the three trucks with additional power: The Ironman Tundra (above) will come with a supercharger that boosts output from 381 horsepower to 540, and the Ironman versions of the Tacoma and FJ Cruiser will produce 304 hp, up 65 ponies from the standard 239.

Other components on the Ironman Tundra will include Bilstein shocks, a Hurst pistol-grip shifter, 20-inch Alcoa aluminum-alloy rims with General tires, and Magnaflow cat-back exhaust. Similar add-ons will be available for the FR Cruiser and Tacoma.

Toyota hopes to sell 500 Ironman packages this year and between 5,000 and 10,000 packages next year.

Could be Toyota knows something about future gas prices that the rest of us don't. Time will tell.

Scott Doggett:  is an AutoObserver.com Associate Editor.