Should Toyota Build a Dakar-Branded Raptor Competitor?
High-speed off-road rigs like the Raptor are gaining popularity, which presents Toyota with a great opportunity.
Last week, I wrote about how the overlanding craze is only getting hotter, and decided that the world needs more hyper-custom Toyota Chinooks. For the record, I still stand by that bold, absolutely correct statement. But as I was turning over the disturbing lack of lifted, hyper-custom 40 year-old motor homes on our nation’s logging roads, I remembered that Toyota Gazoo Racing actually fielded a team in the Dakar Rally last year, and sensed an opportunity.
Now, if you’re not familiar with the Dakar Rally, it’s arguably the most brutal off-road event in the world. Like the Baja 1000 held annually in Mexico, teams that take on this event have to overcome one of Mother Nature’s harshest environments just to finish the event, and mid-race repairs are the norm.
In the 2020 running of the rally, new Toyota driver Fernando Alonso — who has also done fairly well in another form of motorsport — got more coverage for helping fix his busted Hilux than anything he did behind the wheel. Which is actually pretty cool, when you think about it. So it made me think Toyota should be getting more mileage out of its participation in the event.
Now, until the introduction of the RAM TRX, Ford was the only truck maker which offered a high-speed off-road rig — the groundbreaking Raptor — straight from the factory. To put it mildly, the Raptor has been a huge success for the Blue Oval, and I’m sure that Ma Mopar will sell its 700-horsepower competitor just as fast as it can crank them out. Since Chevy hasn’t really entered the rally-ready pickup game, and is honestly still being quite deservedly mocked for what it did to the Blazer, there’s a great opening here for Toyota to show off what it learned playing in the world’s most dangerous sandbox.
Since the company doesn’t sell the legendary Hilux here in the States, the Tacoma would be the natural platform for any Dakar-branded super truck. Of course, there would have to be a major power injection to the current 278-horsepower V6. Even the base Raptor makes 450 ponies, and we know an more ferocious version is in the mail. Obviously, eclipsing the RAM would be impossible, but I’m envisioning more of a exclusive, small-batch build for the Tacoma Dakar Edition, which would forgo any luxury appointments in favor of a stripped down, bare-knuckle racer feel. A swollen hood with a massive supercharger certainly wouldn’t hurt the aesthetic — because it never does.
Given that you can still get the TRD models with a manual, a third pedal would be a great way for it to stand out in the segment, provided that the race division could get the suspension sorted, which I don’t think would be a problem.
The question, obviously, is would be whether there would be any money in the prospect of a Dakar-branded Tacoma. Could Toyota throw the TRD catalog at a bare-bones Tacoma with a built motor and trick suspension and make the bean counters happy? Unfortunately, I think the answer is probably no. This would be a vanity project, through and through. It could be great for marketing, however, so maybe we could see a project like this happen as kind of a swan song, before the fourth generation drops in 2024. Because while money talks, street cred still means something.
So what do you think? Would it be a good move for Toyota to launch a competitor to the Ford Raptor and the RAM TRX? And if the company did want to enter this segment, what kind of features would you like to see on the Tacoma Dakar Edition? Hit me up and let me know! Well, unless you think this is a totally dumb idea, in which case you should totally hit up someone else!
Photos: Toyota