2000 Toyota Tundra V8 - Watch out Detroit!
There's a new player in the biggest game in the country. The Toyota Tundra antes up with a few tricks up its sleeve. First of all, this is no compact pick-up truck. Toyota has long been a major player in the minor pick-up shoot out. Now, all has changed and the big three have some very stiff competition from the East to contend with.
Still, a few questions have to be answered. Is this a 'real' truck? Can a Toyota play with the big boys of the industrial working class? You bet! Drive up beside a full-size Chevy, Dodge or Ford and you're looking eye-to-eye with its astonished occupants. You'll get more double takes from pick-up drivers than if you rode a bull naked at a rodeo.
Toyota entered the full-size truck market a few years back with the durable but unloved T100. Was it a good truck? Was it the right size? Yes to both of these questions. Toyota doesn't build junk. So why didn't it succeed and why again will the Tundra?
A V8, a V8 and what's more... a V8! That's the first ace up the Tundra's sleeve. The T100 came to town with a good solid 6-cylinder engine. However good this motor was, it wasn't a V8. After all, you don't come to a gunfight with a knife. The Tundra's mill isn't just any regular old-tech V8. It's equipped with the smoothest V8 available in a truck, let alone most cars. The 32-valve, dual-overhead cam, i-Force 4.7-liter unit under the hood is the most sophisticated engine available in any pick-up truck to date.