The 2025 Toyota 4Runner is HERE! First look

Welcome to Extra Throttle House. I'm Thomas. And I'm James. And this is the all-new Toyota 4Runner. Is that a drum roll? I didn't time it very well. No, you didn't. But it's very exciting. It is. Because we've been submerged in Toyota land recently. Very much. Actually, we helped the guys from the main Throttle House channel just film an adventure with the new Land Cruiser. That's coming out soon. It is very exciting. We can't say how it drives. No. But we can say that this is very similar to it in many, many ways. It's its brother. It's sibling. It's brother in off-roady funniness. Well done, James. Thank you for coming out. So, well, this was such a confusing point for me for so long. I was so nervous that they were going to build it on the platform of the Highlander or something and, like, Bronco-sportify it. Yeah, the reason that's the case is because previously the Lexus GX and the 4Runner were the twins. Yes. And now the Land Cruiser has come along and it's made it triplets. Right. Because we saw what the Land Cruiser was going to be, which since the Land Cruiser wasn't like a bigger thing like the Lexus LX, the Land Cruiser was kind of like a Land Cruiser Prado, which is like the smaller, lighter duty one. That's confusing because the 4Runner kind of used to be that smaller, lighter duty Land Cruiser thing. It held that space. But then they brought out the Land Cruiser and it was kind of like a 4Runner. Then they brought out the 4Runner and it was kind of like a 4Runner. So they're kind of like the same. So here's the good news. But not. They haven't neutered the 4Runner. Not at all. Apart from in one way. Oh. Because now there's no six-cylinder. Oh. This can be optioned two different ways. There is the i-Force, which is just a normal gas-powered four-cylinder. Yep. And then there's the i-Force Max. This one. Which is what the TRD Pro and the Trailhunter and the Top Trims get. Yes. Like the Tacoma. It also, in some ways, is a more dedicated off-roader than the Land Cruiser. Which feels weird to say. Yes. It's very confusing how the whole thing works. Basically, this is like a Land Cruiser underneath. But it's like a Tacoma in the front end in the interior. Yes. And the drivetrain. Which is also like a Land Cruiser. Right. But the Tacoma is longer than this. This is the same as the Land Cruiser in the GX. As the wheelbase. Right. So you get big knobbly tyres on this. You get all the funky suspension options that you get with the Tacoma. Like the old man EMU shocks on the Trailhunter. Yeah. Which is also, by the way, an entirely new trim for the 4Runner. And it's awesome. We'll talk about that more in a second. But this is the TRD Pro. This is our TRD Pro. So we get Fox shocks. This is the Baja build. Yes. They kind of split them, right? Before, the TRD Pro kind of had to do all the Overland and the off-road stuff. And it had to do the Baja stuff. They said, screw it. Let's make two. So now we've got the Trailhunter. Which is like your Overland. There's like an air compressor in the back of it. Kind of like a Land Cruiser. Yeah. Almost like a Land Cruiser. All right. I feel like we've got to be ahead of ourselves. We did. Let's just talk about the way it looks. It's the first time we've seen it. Yes. Just come stand here. And if you just focus on this little bit right here, and you can't see the back of the cab, you'd go, it's a? Tacoma. It looks like a Tacoma. And that's not a bad thing. No. Because the Tacoma's a good looking truck. Yeah. We got the light bar here. We've got these fog lights here, which I think are clear on the TRD Pro. But they can be had in amber on the Trailhunter. And we saw a Trailhunter in the Everest color. Which looked wicked. Absolutely loved it. And that with amber fog lights, I feel like is super mean. And looks aftermarket, but it's from factory. What color is this? This is Mud Bath. What a great name. It's just, it's another cement. No, no, no. But it works on this. You get away with it. Because any of the tan or kind of muddy colors on these off-road trucks look so good. I'm obsessed with it. Have you noticed? I'm talking about it a lot lately. But it works for this spec. Because this is a spec that will have, inevitably, a mud bath. It's already had a little bit of one. So we've got these 33-inch Toyo tires. Yep. Again, way more aggressive than what you can get on the Land Cruiser. So we were trying to categorize what this is in our heads of like, how do you decide between this or the Trailhunter of this versus a Land Cruiser? Because they both benefit from the I-Force Max. They both have similar horsepower and torque numbers. Well, one way is that the Land Cruiser comes with full-time four-wheel drive. It has that center locking differential. Right. Which can be not locked. So you can drive it all-wheel drive all the time. You can't do that with this. This just has, you know, the four high, four low, rear locking differential, and the sway bar disconnect. Okay. So this is more heavy-duty, but potentially not as street-friendly. Yeah, not as street-friendly every day. Yeah, okay. Yeah, exactly. And if you get the four-cylinder of this, we haven't got prices yet, but if you get the four-cylinder of this, it will be cheaper. It starts cheaper than the Land Cruiser. Right. Who knows if the TRD Pro and the Trailhunter... Don't have price yet. ...end up surpassing the Land Cruiser. Yeah. But this has one of our favorite things that's now lost on modern vehicles, isn't it? A window that goes down. Oh, I'm so happy they did not get rid of this. And you can control it from the back. Yeah, there's a button there. I'm sure you have to have it unlocked or something. But this looks great, doesn't it? This actually doesn't look that much different, but it says the TRD Pro, window that goes down. This little wing here. I think it just doesn't disappoint. It doesn't disappoint at all in any single way. It's a 4Runner. Well, you know, we owned a 4Runner. Yes, we did. Okay, we had a V8. Yeah. We thought that was really cool. It was. I've sold it. But we bought that for $6,700. Yeah. It was great when it lasted, huh? Yeah, so we're 4Runner fans, and I think that remains to be the case. Should we have a look in the inside? Let's have a look on the inside. Yeah. Okay. It's very cool in here. It's very... But again, it's more rugged. It is definitely more rugged. We just got out of the Land Cruiser, and that feels sensible. It feels sensible and simple. This feels really styled. We've got this big Toyota badge on the thing here, and all the colors are different in the different trims and what you get. The Trailhunter looks very similar to this, but the Limited looks different. Speaking of Limited, I do need to caveat one thing. A full-time four-wheel drive is available in a Limited trim. Right. But not in the TRD or the Trailhunter. Right. Okay, yeah, some of the premium street trims. Yes. Get it. Okay. One thing that this doesn't get, and I know this is mostly trying to have fun, but one of the most exciting things about the new Tacoma TRD Pro are those isodynamic seats. Yes, which are not available in this. They don't come on the 4Runner, because the 4Runner is made in Japan, whereas the Tacoma is made in America, and Americans have more fun than the Japanese. Apparently, yeah. I don't want to get involved. You guys want to fight it out. Exactly. But yeah. This has got pretty much everything you'd possibly need. I really like this selector, by the way. I've been using it to select four low, four high, too. How you push this and turn. That's pretty neat. You can hear it doing its thing down there, right? Got all the drive modes, obviously. Crawl mode, all that stuff. Heated steering wheel. Big Toyota badge. JBL sound system. This is going to cost money. This is going to cost, isn't it? It's going to cost money. 4Runners have always been expensive, and then you look at this one and how cool and new and fancy it is. Like, right away, you can assume it's going to be pricey. I really like how they've kind of split the purpose of the different 4Runners even more clearly now. For example, in the Trailhunter, you get an air compressor to lower your tire pressures for off-roading and rock crawling and that sort of thing, right? It's built into the car. But both of these, since they're the iForce Max, get the outlet in the back. Oh, that's fun. Yes, just like the Land Cruiser. Yes, which, did we use that on our trip? We did, we did. We had a cooler plugged into it. We did. Sorry, not a cooler, a fridge. We did. I don't remember the trip that we just did yesterday because it was such a blur. It was a blur. That's going to be exciting. Yes. We tried the back seats of this. I fit perfectly at 5'10". Harrison, 6'6", doesn't. Not quite enough headroom. No, OK. I guess this is sort of that mid-size size. It's not full, full size, is it? Yeah. I don't know. This is a really cool, and I'm very excited, honestly. I was worried. I lost sleep over it. I was concerned that it was going to be, as I saw the Land Cruiser, I'm like, that looks like a 4Runner. But now we have this, and it's just like a Land Cruiser. But this is I-Force Max. And we haven't tried I-Force Max yet, apart from we have in the Land Cruiser. And we're about to try it in the Tacoma. Yes. Basically. Well done, James. We have tried the I-Force Max. He said it was a blur. You remember? Yeah. On Extra Throttle House, there is about to be a video after this video of the Tacoma TRD Pro, which is not too different to this. Same engine, same interior. Yes. And that's the I-Force Max. Right. So make sure you watch that on Extra Throttle House. Right. And I'm not- We're the cool ones. I don't know. Yeah, but I'm not in that video. Screw Regular Throttle House. I'm not in that video. You're not in that video. It's just you. That's right. That's why it's better. You see? All right. So here's my question for you. Because when it comes to off-road stuff, you know, we had the V8. We had the old 4Runner. The technology doesn't change that much. Like, putting good shocks on an old vehicle- Can do a lot. It can do a lot. So if this comes out, the TRD Pro, and it's like $55,000, $60,000. What are you getting? What's improved? Like, we've got this big screen, which is a lot more square than the Land Cruiser. Yeah. We've got digital gauge cluster, obviously. I guess- Very nice. Lighting technology has come a long way. There's a lot of cool lights in the front. The rear taillights are cool, and these are the stripes. Also, I'm going to guess efficiency is probably a thing, untested, to be fair. But like, I can tell you from experience, our V8 4Runner, it wasn't too good on fuel. No. No, and you can imagine that a hybrid 4-cylinder will probably be better on fuel. But do you think people are going to be disappointed about the 4-cylinder? I don't know. Maybe. Maybe a little bit. Because like, well, what did we just see go- Oh, a Tacoma went by us on the highway, and it had the V6 in it, and it made a great noise. He had like an exhaust on it or something, right? So I mean, if you're bar-harring, you want excitement and drama. And to be fair, I mean, especially in things like the Trailhunter, you're going for longevity, long distances, and I don't know, unproven reliability is basically what I'm saying. Remains to be seen. However, Toyota hybrid engines have been reliable in the past, so one can assume the Toyota thing has happened. Normally a turbocharged or turbocharged hybrid seems scary. Yes, but- But we'll see. We'll see. Yeah, if anyone can do it, I think Toyota probably have a good chance. Yeah. The question now is GX versus 4Runner versus Land Cruiser. They're all so close. I honestly don't know the answer to that question. Maybe we will answer it in the Land Cruiser video, which I don't remember what we said because you said it was a blur. All right, but the good news is not a Highlander with a 4Runner badge. Yes, exactly. Potentially very serious off-roader. This looks like it's going to be pretty great. Yeah. Penis.