Toyota Teases Off-Road Vehicles Ahead of Chicago
A Toyota teaser is hinting at new off-road vehicles ahead of the Chicago Auto Show with a picture of a Tacoma pickup truck kicking up dirt.
“The forecast for the Windy City looks sporty and outdoorsy, with a touch of nocturnal mischief as Toyota debuts new variants to the portfolio,” the automaker said
Last year at the same auto show, Toyota unveiled a number of new TRD models, which seems likely to happen again based on the teaser. As I wrote a year ago, when vehicles get the TRD treatment, they tend to go either ultra-sporty in the case of cars or ultra-rugged in the case of SUVs and pickup trucks.
This seems to be becoming something of a tradition for Toyota, as it not only brought a bunch of off-road vehicles to Chicago last year, but also the year before with lots of updates to its TRD Pro Series lineup.
Related: Discover Toyota’s truck lineup
Needless to say, when Toyota says “sporty and outdoorsy,” it tends to take the meaning seriously, so you can expect more than just seat warmer accessories and studded winter tires — though, admittedly, anyone living in Chicago at this time of the year would likely appreciate those.
More interesting is the automaker’s line about “nocturnal mischief.” Nocturnal is pretty much industry-speak for blacked-out, special edition models (for Toyota, the go-to term is usually Nightshade Edition, even if those models are only somewhat black).
It remains to be seen if the “mischief” bit means anything concrete or is simply there to make the teaser more interesting. After all, for some people, anything taking place in the dark must necessarily be mischievous.
Related: Fun car facts you didn’t know
If you want to see more than just the Toyota teaser, just tune in to the automaker’s press conference on Thursday, Feb. 6 at 11:30 AM EST. Even if you can’t make it in person, you can simply tune into the livestream.
Kurt Verlin was born in France and lives in the United States. Throughout his life he was always told French was the language of romance, but it was English he fell in love with. He likes cats, music, cars, 30 Rock, Formula 1, and pretending to be a race car driver in simulators; but most of all, he just likes to write about it all. See more articles by Kurt.