Is a pickup truck really a truck without a burly V8 under the hood? My mind raced with this very question as I hiked myself into the 2024 Toyota Tundra TRD Pro, only to have those worries vanish as soon as I tapped the magic button and started up this behemoth.
Wow, I thought. This thing actually sounds pretty … mean?!
Two years ago, Toyota thoroughly reimagined the Tundra and closely related Sequoia, two of its oldest models. The update was long overdue; aside from a refresh in 2014, the Tundra stuck around in its previous form since 2007. That is an eternity in the auto industry, and coupled with the Big Three’s unofficial monopoly in the pickup truck segment, means the Tundra has been cast to the sidelines for a while now. Still, Tundra buyers are nothing if not loyal, and this latest-gen truck is a compelling alternative to the usual suspects. Plus, it looks really badass in this TRD Pro flavour.
It’s hard to make a pickup stand out without Cybertrucking it, and for the most part, the Tundra plays it safe. It looks and quacks like a truck, wearing a supersized grille, chunky lines, and a conventionally handsome overall look that in other trims, bears more than a passing resemblance to a Ford F-150. The Tundra TRD Pro stands out as the badass one in the lineup, with its shouty front grille, black BBS wheels wrapped in Falken all-terrain tires, and satin black accents all around. Look even closer and you’ll pick out clever hidden details, like the TRD logo hidden in the amber markers, a subtle forged carbon/digital camo pattern around the wheel arches, front bumper, and tailgate, and bright red upper control arms peeking out above the front wheels. Very cool.
This is one very imposing truck, but it’s more than just visuals. In addition to the dress-up, the TRD Pro package adds a laundry list of suspension and chassis upgrades, including a TRD exhaust, Fox shocks, and upgraded springs resulting in a slight lift, plus beefier sway bars — finished in bright red, too — and a skid plate, in addition to the aforementioned BBS wheels and knobby Falkens. Not quite on the same level as an F-150 Raptor, or a Sierra AT4X for that matter, but it’s solid hardware and more than enough for most weekend off-roading.
The rest of the Tundra TRD Pro remains untouched. That means Toyota’s i-Force Max hybrid powertrain under the hood, consisting of a 3.4-litre twin-turbo V6 augmented by an electric motor and a nickel-metal-hydride battery pack. On its own, the V6 puts out a more-than-respectable 389 horsepower and 479 pound-feet of torque — this engine will also appear in the upcoming Lexus GX — but the hybrid setup is good for 437 hp and a meaty 583 lb-ft of torque. That’s sent to the tarmac (or dirt) through a 10-speed automatic transmission, a part-time four-wheel-drive system, and a litany of drive and terrain modes.
I didn’t tow anything, and the biggest thing we hauled in the bed was a desk my wife bought off Facebook Marketplace for $10. But if your needs are more intensive than that, the Tundra TRD Pro will tow up to 11,175 pounds, and payload is rated at 1,630 pounds.
Toyota’s been in the hybrid game for a long time, and it shows. The Tundra’s powertrain is impeccably smooth, hardly making a fuss when it transitions from gas to electric and vice-versa. It’s well-matched to the 10-speed automatic, delivering snappy shifts when you put your foot down, and fading into the background when you ease into a cruise. Though the F-150 Powerboost feels much quicker when you floor it, the Tundra boogies surprisingly well, peeling off the line and passing 18-wheelers with the sort of immediacy you simply wouldn’t expect from a 6,000-plus-pound behemoth. Heck, it even sounds like a V8; Toyota did an excellent job capturing the gurgling baritone on start-up and through lower speeds. Beyond the engine, the Tundra TRD Pro is well-mannered. There is a bit of extra road noise on account of the tires, but wind noise is well-hushed and the Tundra’s coil-spring setup all around snuffs out most of the harshness you’d expect from a pickup.
That said, we’re not quite sold on the electric side of the Tundra’s powertrain. Officially, Toyota rates the TRD Pro at 12.9 L/100 kilometres in the city, 11.6 highway, and 12.3 combined. That’s an appreciable bump over what Toyota quotes for the hybridized, non-TRD Pro variants, and the TRD Pro’s all-terrain tires no doubt play a big role in the added thirst. Still, we were surprised to see the trip computer settle at 16.2 L/100 km by the end of our evaluation. For reference, the last Capstone we had averaged 13.2 albeit in slightly warmer weather, and the last F-150 Powerboost we drove managed an impressive 11.8. Fortunately, the Tundra TRD Pro happily runs on 87, but we didn’t expect fuel economy to suffer this much.
Inside, the Tundra TRD Pro gains similarly badass-ified styling tweaks as the exterior. The same digital camo extends to the seats, accented by a smattering of red accents and TRD Pro logos throughout, plus an all-caps TOYOTA badge on the passenger-side dash to match the shouty front grille. If it weren’t for the red accents, the otherwise all-black interior is pretty drab, but materials and fit-and-finish feel pretty good, the infotainment — running Toyota’s latest software on a 14-inch touchscreen — is a big improvement over their old system, there’s plenty of storage, and the crew cab configuration is roomy regardless of where you sit.
We do have a couple of nitpicks. The TRD Pro’s lift over standard Tundras makes getting into and out of this thing challenging, especially given the lack of side steps. And as gimmicky as GM’s rear bumper cutouts may be — or even Ford’s deployable tailgate steps — the Tundra TRD Pro gets no such concessions for easy access to its 5.5-foot bed.
But at $86,910 as tested before fees and taxes, the 2024 Toyota Tundra TRD Pro is competitively priced among the Big Three, especially when it’s far too easy for a truck to cost a hundred grand. The Tundra may still sits at the sidelines of the pickup market; it probably won’t win over any GM, Ford, or Ram loyalists, but the Tundra owners out there are nothing if not loyal. For them — and for those who can be swayed — the Tundra’s powertrain and thorough improvements make it a compelling alternative. Just ask yourself how badly you really need cool-looking tires.
