Why Life-Size Tonka Toyota Trucks Should Influence a Lexus Pickup
This past summer I got to test out the Tonka Toyota Tundra, Ford-F-250 and Toyota 4Runner at Big Sky Movie Ranch. That’s where they shot the iconic television show Gunsmoke. Big Sky Movie Ranch is also a great place to go off-roading. My experience playing with life-size Tonka trucks on a private, off-road movie ranch playground was fun, as you’ll see in the video above, but it also got me thinking: Lexus needs a pickup, and if it is to be successful, one key ingredient it should have, among other essentials, is the verve these Tonka trucks have.
Luxury isn’t just about added accoutrements, or making things nicer. If that were all it was about, the Lincoln Blackwood and Mark LT pickups (F-150s with extra chrome and leather) would have been resounding successes. Instead, Tonka took the Tundra, 4Runner and F-250, and dialed everything up from stock. That certainly adds character, but once all the Tonka branding gets added, things come full-circle. That’s when you get a story behind a vehicle. That’s when things get interesting. Because so many people have memories of playing with Tonka trucks during their single-digit years, many folks have their own personal connections with the vehicles just by looking at them. There’s something luxurious about Tonka’s totality of vehicular amplification.
Back when I was a kid, my oldest brother, Jeff, was adamant about drilling the following quote into my young, malleable mind: “Money makes you more of what you are.” He even made me repeat the quote back to him a couple of times to ensure my comprehension. Twenty years later, I still think about money’s effect on people, but with my recent Tonka experience, light has fallen upon my wacky ideas of what could make a luxury pickup successful.
If an automaker is going to throw money at an already-existing, non-luxury product, it should allow the money to make the vehicle more of what it already is, just like Tonka does with its life-size toys. Don’t just make it more luxurious like Lincoln did. Make it perform better on all fronts: luxury, performance, design, utility, capability, etc. If a luxury automaker can do that, then they are more likely to succeed with their product. Granted, a luxury automaker can’t slap Tonka logos all over its product in order to add pedigree, but it can put more of a story behind a vehicle by associating it with racing victories. A production-based Lexus pickup’s entry into the Baja 1000 would resonate pedigree and performance through the ages. I believe the luxury segment is taking up more market share these days because luxury no longer means more leather and a softer ride. Nowadays, luxury means performance, too. You only have to go as far as the letter “F” to realize that.
And so that leads us to how Lexus pickups are in the news today. According to a story from Motor Authority, a Lexus pickup is under study. This makes sense. Look at Mercedes-Benz. Lexus’s German rival is developing a pickup truck that will reportedly be badged a “GLT”. The global market for mid-size pickup trucks amounts to roughly 2.3 million sales annually. That’s a significant figure. Apparently significant enough for Lexus to consider adding a mid-size pickup to its global lineup. Well, almost global. Poor souls here in the U.S. would likely be excluded from a future Lexus truck. Womp-womp.
But if Lexus is going to introduce a pickup truck, it can’t be a “TaChroma”, or a high-lux Hilux. It’s got to offer everything more than a standard pickup can already offer. If you’re paying more money, you simply should get more. More capability, utility, performance, pedigree and luxury.
At this point, perhaps you’re thinking, “Most luxury SUVs on the market are just chromed-up, leathered-up versions of non-luxury SUVs, and the luxury versions sell just fine.” Yes, thinker, you’re right on the money there. But regular SUVs are already status symbols out of the gate. A unilateral smathering of luxury into the equation is good enough to add status, and that’s fine when you’re talking about selling luxury SUVs.
Trucks are different.
A pickup truck’s raison d’être is capability and utility. Only when a truck offers abundant levels of capability and utility, does it become a status symbol. A two-wheel-drive, slow pickup with lots of leather and chrome is not going to appeal to high-end buyers. If Cadillac tried to sell a Fleetwood Brougham today, the market would ignore it like you want to ignore your electric bill. That’s why these days Cadillac builds a CTS-V super sedan with a 640-horsepower Corvette engine. So getting back to the idea of a Lexus truck, it has to have Ford Raptor levels of capability. Consider this: if you see a non-commercial pickup truck tooling around West LA or Manhattan, it’s going to be a Raptor. Luxury buyers love knowing they have the ability to do crazy stuff in their trucks, even though they never will. Raptors look wicked, too, and that doesn’t hurt their status game at all.
OK, so let’s summarize what a future Lexus truck needs in order to be successful. #1: It needs to look like something wicked and pissed off from the future, kind of like the Audi R8 did when it was introduced nearly 10 years ago. #2: It’s got to be Raptor-capable. I’m talking from rock-crawler warrior to 100 mph on the whoops all day long. #3: Of course it needs to be luxurious. It’s a Lexus, after all. #4: It’s got to be fun like a Tonka truck. It can’t take itself too seriously, but if it does, it should have some racing pedigree associated with it. One way or another, it’s got to speak to your inner child. Remember that kid? You know, the one who was playing with Tonka trucks on the living room floor at the age of five? Yeah, it’s got to speak to that kid, and once Lexus can do all of those things, one through four, it will have a new icon for the 21st century on its hands.
