From the 2014 Chicago Auto Show, Pickuptrucks.com's Mark Williams takes a look at the TRD Pro Package on the 2015 Toyota Tundra and 2015 Toyota Tacoma.

Thanks to Toyota's expansive indoor off-roading course at the 2014 Chicago Auto Show, PickupTrucks.com Editor Mark Williams got to see the 2015 Toyota 4Runner TRD Pro Series in action conquering steep inclines, fording water obstacles and crawling rock. The true test of the special-package SUV won't come until we get behind the wheel and off the road ourselves, but in the meantime, Williams was able to take note of its new FJ Cruiser-style grille, aluminum skid plating underneath, heavy-duty shocks, aggressive-tread tires and TRD Pro badging.

It's pretty cool to have multiple-time off-road racing champion Ivan "Ironman" Stewart riding along when you're bouncing a Toyota Tundra along a rutted gravel track in the desert. That is, until you misjudge your speed over a gully and -- BANG! -- smack the aluminum front skidplate. "That's just it telling you you've reached the limit," Stewart says. "That's why we have the plate."

Fortunately, the truck can take that sort of treatment. (And no, we weren't the only ones to dent or ding skidplates.) Like the Tacoma and 4Runner also on hand, this Tundra is equipped with a new Toyota Racing Development (TRD) Pro Series package that was revealed at the 2014 Chicago auto show. Available this fall for an as-yet undetermined price, the TRD Pro treatment beefs up the Toyota trucks and SUVs for use on tough terrain like we're tackling half an hour south of the Vegas strip.

The basic recipe is the same for all three Toyota models. New, longer Eibach springs give an increased ride height and suspension travel, while Bilstein shocks keep the ride tolerable both on and off pavement. A new skidplate protects the engine, black wheels dress up the exterior, a special retro Toyota badge adorns the grille, and TRD Pro-specific floor mats and shift ***** outfit the cabin. The three color choices are black, super white, and inferno. "We're taking three of the most rugged vehicles in the industry, and we're taking them to the extreme," explains Toyota Motor Sales marketing vice president Jack Hollis.

The Comfortable One
The Toyota 4Runner doesn't feel particularly extreme as we head down I-15 from Las Vegas. Despite its higher ride height and off-road Nitto Terra Grappler tires, there's nothing unpleasant about driving this 4Runner on pavement. In fact, because the spring rates are softer than in a normal 4Runner, the TRD Pro is actually really comfortable over rough pavement. Soon though, we put the SUV in its natural territory, heading down a dirt road to a tricky rutted trail. Our speeds are never high, but our angles of inclination are, as we creep up and skitter down steep grades, lean at extreme angles around banked turns, and cross V-shaped gullies.

Even in the worst of it, the 4Runner never delivers the sort of harsh impacts that would prompt calls to a chiropractor. We bounce around when the SUV hops over big rocks or pounds through ruts, but they are soft, controlled impacts. The shocks absorb and slow up the suspension before it painfully bottoms out. It feels remarkably gentle given the type of driving we're doing. And with the raised ride height and quarter-inch aluminum skid plate, there's considerably less likelihood of damaging any sensitive bits than in a standard 4Runner.

The Fast One
Our next journey is in the Toyota Tundra, which has a slightly more advanced system than either of the other TRO Pro vehicles. Softer, longer springs increase ride height and overall suspension travel by two inches, bringing the Tundra to 10.5 inches of front wheel travel -- which the TRD guys like to point out is very close to the Ford F-150 SVT Raptor's 11.2 inches. More important are a set of remote-reservoir Bilstein shocks with position-sensitive damping, which can be tuned to provide different levels of damping based on how far the suspension has traveled. For the Tundra TRD Pro, that means Toyota could dial in low primary compression for a gentle ride and off-road compliance, while gradually ramping-up compression as the wheel moves farther to keep the suspension controlled over large impacts. The more the wheel moves, the more the shock absorber resists its travel. "We're trying to avoid the harsh bottom-out," explains Toyota suspension engineer Zach Zwillinger. "It's not a race car, but it is a lot faster than a stock car."

A flatter, less technical driving route reflects the fact that this truck is setup for higher-speed running. It calmly soaks up and floats over bumps and imperfections, and even more so than the 4Runner, provides a gentle transition when you run out of articulation over large impacts. The ride stays composed on high-speed runs over minor bumps, yet firms up enough to keep the truck from banging into the end of its suspension travel over larger ruts and ditches.

Later in the day, "Ironman" Stewart hops into the driver's seat to demonstrate even more ably the benefits of the TRD upgrades. Stewart blasts the truck down the gravel trail at twice the speed we drove, yet bumps and ruts are almost totally filtered out by the Bilsteins before they reach the cabin. With one hand keeping a loose grip on the steering wheel and his left foot dabbing the brakes, Stewart even posits that the truck's suspension is so good, an unmodified Tundra TRD Pro could tackle -- and finish -- the grueling Baja 1000 race. We take that with a grain of salt given that Stewart is paid to promote Toyota off-road products; he joined the company's factory team in 1983.

The Tundra also benefits from a new TRD exhaust that is said to add about eight horsepower, although its output hasn't been officially certified. The real benefit, though, is the throatier rumble from our test truck's 5.7-liter V-8 engine. Another Tundra-specific feature is the addition of "TRD Pro" logos stamped into the bed's sides.

The Stiff One
If there's one disappointment, it's when we take a Toyota Tacoma TRD Pro up steep gravel switchbacks, down winding trails, and through rocky scrub at the base of a hill. Where the 4Runner and Tundra impress with their composure in the rough stuff, the Tacoma jostles and jiggles occupants so much you're aware of every rock or pebble you traverse. The official word is that the Tacoma's light truck BFGoodrich All-Terrain T/A KO tires are the cause, as they have stiffer construction than the passenger-car off-road tires used by the 4Runner and Tundra. No doubt the Tacoma's relatively light weight and comparatively small wheels (16 inches, versus 18 on the Tundra and 17 on the 4Runner) play a role, too.

Still, the tires afford plenty of grip on loose gravel, which is reassuring given the steep drop-offs along our path. We have to engage 4-High only once, to get over a steep gravel mound when leaving the rocky trail for a dirt-packed fire road. The Tacoma's suspension has been raised by two inches and offers one inch more articulation than stock, and the black TRD wheels have a higher offset, effectively widening the truck's track. As on the Tundra, a new exhaust is said to add about eight hp, although the truck's official power and fuel-economy ratings haven't been revised. Interestingly, Toyota says about 40 percent of all Tacomas sold leave the showroom with the existing, milder TRD Sport and TRD Off-Road packages.

Ready For The Real World
TRD parts are serious business for Toyota; last year, add-on accessories sold through dealerships brought in more than $23 million for the company. Aftermarket pieces that achieve the same effect might be cheaper, but the TRD Pro package is ready from the factory, can be serviced at any Toyota outlet, and is covered by the standard three-year/36,000-mile warranty. Officials even claim that so long as there are no signs of obvious abuse, dealers would warranty problems due to off-road use, like blown shocks or damaged suspension mounts.

Not that we need to test that claim today. Our group of journalists bumped and bounced the TRD Pro vehicles on rough trails all day long with zero problems. While our test couldn't possibly replicate the gamut of abuse to which real-world owners might subject these trucks, it's a promising sign for the package's durability.

We drive the TRD Pro Series trucks, Toyota's newest Super Off-Roaders

What is it?

Goodsprings, Nev., is about 20 miles southwest of Las Vegas, the sort of place with historical plaques that are nearly as old as the places they describe. The desert trails winding past the "historic" Pioneer Saloon -- where Clark Gable drowned his sorrows -- are littered with jagged rocks and a dust that fills your lungs. Wild burros that won't flinch at oncoming machinery roam, along with endangered desert tortoises that we are never to hit, even accidentally, lest we have to fill out the paperwork. It is 99 degrees outside -- never a shortage of sunlight, never a place to hide from it.

It's the perfect place to run Toyota's latest in off-road badassery: the TRD Pro Series of trucks, previously announced at the Chicago Auto Show, now crashing and banging and occasionally jumping over the Nevada rocks until they sound like they're going to break. They didn't. If they had, we'd still be in the desert.

For the Tundra, the Tacoma and the 4Runner, Toyota Racing Development has supplied beefy 2.5-inch Bilstein shocks with remote reservoirs, paired with TRD-tuned Eibach springs that increase lift around 2 inches upfront and an inch in back; their rates are decreased, from stock, for a less jarring ride both on-road and off. Wheel travel increases 1-2 inches. The TRD exhaust on the two pickups add around 10 hp, according to Toyota's preliminary (and unpublished) testing. Front aluminum skid plates, a quarter-inch thick, are necessities. The rest of the package amounts to appearance: TRD floor mats, shift *****, and blacked-out wheels, while the black grilles on all three feature retro TOYOTA badging, just in time for Marty McFly's arrival to the future -- next year.

Each vehicle receives something unique. Only the Tacoma receives beadlock-style wheels, for instance. (Its TRD package is nearly identical to the Baja Series Tacoma, except for reduced spring rates.) The Tundra gets red-stitched cloth seats and TRD Pro stamped on the bed panels. The 4Runner gets an additional inch of wheel travel but for some reason is the only one without a TRD exhaust. All three trucks have different wheels and tires: 18-inch Michelin on Tundra, 17-inch Nitto for 4Runner, 16-inch BF Goodrich with the Tacoma. All three trucks get paint options consisting of black, super white and a color Toyota calls "inferno," which resembles an overripe tomato.

Of course, Toyota is quick to champion its off-road heritage. It dragged off-road legend Ivan "Ironman" Stewart away from retirement in balmy San Diego just for this purpose, bringing him back to the same trails he used to race early in his career. "I remember chasing a guy right down here," he said as we bombed down a three-wide trail of scattered rocks that curved down past the edge of a small cliff. "'Course, we'd be going three times the speed, trying to pass each other through the dust."

After driving the three TRD Pro trucks, we hoped somebody would name a video game after us.

What's it like to drive?

All three vehicles have their own personalities. The 4Runner is light on its feet and slides willingly in the dirt with a lightness belying its size. The Tacoma delivers a visceral experience, filled with noise and roughness, yet it feels slightly more lethargic than the heavier 4Runner. The Tundra feels like it can take any amount of abuse you can throw at it, every time: careening loudly over dips and scraggly inclines, we hit hard but never reach the bump stops. The unique three-stage valving, designed to ease the transition into bottoming out, does its job. By the end of the day, the Tundra's skid plate resembled a piece of armor from a sunken battleship. "When you hit the skid plate," said Ironman Stewart, after inspecting our bump stops, "you've reached your limit."

What's good for off-road is apparently good for the asphalt, and the TRD suspension on all three vehicles feels like magic: delivering unflappable smoothness and stability on Interstate 15, one's inclined to believe that every truck and car should ride like this. We drove a Tundra Platinum recently, which creaked and bounced on the asphalt: this here TRD Tundra felt more comfortable off-road than the Platinum did on pavement.

Do I want one?

If you can justify the flimsiest of excuses to buy a sweet truck ("now that I have a motorcycle, I'm gonna need something to haul it with" always works), the Toyota TRD Pro trucks will enable further excuses to spend time in the great outdoors, even if that outdoors happens to be the edge of the Mojave desert.

Pricing is key to utilitarian trucks like these: the trick suspensions aren't cheap, but Toyota trucks are supposed to be. The current Baja Series Tacoma will cost $33,800 including shipping. On that truck, the total cost of the TRD gear comes in at $5,015. Expect similar pricing throughout midrange trims of the Tundra and 4Runner.

In fact, the 4Runner would be our pick for the best balance in agility, solidity, and comfort -- yes, there's even some semblance of it while bouncing around on the dirt. The Tundra's steering was too vague and light even for a truck; Raptor it isn't, though the addition of the 504-hp supercharger would have made for an even more beastlike truck. The Tacoma, rough-and-tumble as it is, would be our second pick, and we'd gladly put up with the harshness if we had to haul dirtbikes. Like those who already own a Baja Series Tacoma, we'd have to don a flat-brim cap with our choice of energy drink on it.

But you can get a Tacoma TRD Pro with the 4.0-liter V6 engine and a manual transmission. That sounds like good, clean fun to us.

Shocks for Days

If you're serious about performance off-roading, chances are you love talking about suspension. And not in an overly simplistic way, like dropping brand names or making statements like "long-stroke shockz iz better." Your topics include shock absorber extended and collapsed lengths, the pros and cons of air bump-stops, and the side effect of lifts on suspension geometry. This is the language spoken by off-road enthusiasts. This is the language spoken by Toyota Racing Development.

The TRD Pro Series story began two years ago, back when it wasn't a series yet. Looking to inject some pizzazz into the truck lineup, the Tundra was earmarked as TRD's first off-road pet project. Then the 4Runner and Tacoma were brought into the mix. It makes sense. The 4Runner has the adventurous reputation with a more affordable entry price point than the Land Cruiser. Forty percent of all Tacomas sold today have TRD packages already. It's best to think of TRD Pro as akin to what F Sport represents to Lexus, in that these are dedicated models and not dress-up treatments. Rumor has it if all goes well, the TRD Pro ethos could spread to produce on-road enhancements for Toyota's cars.

Since the Tundra serves as the halo within what's destined to be the TRD Pro halo sub-brand, it received more TLC. It'll be peddled in extended or crew-cab form, fitted with the 5.7-liter V-8, 4WD, and a TRD cat-back exhaust system. Exterior modifications consist of a burly-looking front grille with a Toyota badge mimicking those found on FJ40 Land Cruisers, "TRD Pro" stampings on the quarter bed panels, a quarter-inch-thick aluminum front skidplate with a handy panel to access the oil sump, and 18-inch TRD wheels. All TRD Pro vehicles come with TRD floormats and shift *****, but Tundra alone adds red stitching on the seats and a special instrument panel insert. The Tundra and 4Runner **** designs were inspired by Audi and Porsche efforts.

Now, the meat and potatoes. Much time and energy were spent tuning the suspension, and the Tundra is packing serious heat. There's at least one TRD engineer looking forward to the inevitable comparisons between it and Ford's F-150 SVT Raptor. The front starts with lower-rate Eibach springs, selected to help raise the nose two inches and give the tires greater opportunity to track off-road surfaces. The coilover shocks were developed with Bilstein and utilize a 2.5-inch body (generally what you'd anticipate for a factory-backed off-road truck) to yield 2 more precious inches of downward wheel travel. Internally, the main piston is 30 percent larger than a standard Tundra's (60mm versus 46), but the real trick lies with a smaller secondary piston (less than half the larger's size) complementing the main one in especially large compressions. (Think when really big bumps come a-knockin'.) Toyota calls the net effect "3-stage position-sensitive valving." There were compromises, of course. The lengthy monotube shock is even longer, and the second piston's physical presence necessitated a remote reservoir to support the damping motions and heat-dissipation requirements. The Tundra is the only TRD Pro ride with this style of shock and with reservoirs hiding in the tightly packaged front.

The rear 2.5-inch shocks have a single primary 60mm piston, remote reservoirs, and leverage 1.25 inches more travel in conjunction with the stock leaf springs. Removing/softening leaves would negatively affect payload hauling and towing. Michelin LTX A/T 2s sized 275/65-18 -- or 32s in truck parlance -- shared with the TRD Off-Road Package reside at the corners.

As is typical with this kind of off-road runner, the truck feels better the faster it can go. On a relatively well-groomed dirt trail with abundant dips of all shapes and sizes, the Tundra TRD Pro was never disturbed. Road feel and steering response are excellent at highway speeds, and the shocks excel in these high-speed conditions by not allowing hectic cab motions or sensations that one or more tires are having trouble staying on the ground overwhelm the driver. In 2WD, you can generate all manner of immense V-8 wheelspin on demand, but the truck endures with a planted balance that leaves the impression you're always in control. We later discovered that under the elegant command of Baja racing luminary Ivan "Ironman" Stewart, the Tundra can power through deeper plunges -- ones we had gingerly crept in and out of on our run -- with a plusher than expected ride. If the truck was bottoming or topping out, it did a good job hiding it.

Compared to the Tundra, the 4Runner and Tacoma are a bit of a letdown, but are quite capable in their own rights. Part of the feeling boils down to the different courses Toyota used to show off the three vehicles: three tracks for three trucks. The Tacoma, which will also be sold as an extended or crew-cab and with its own TRD exhaust system, ran through a gravelly fire road before navigating what appeared to be a long-dried-up and narrow river bed; the 4Runner had a route with considerably more sharp rock edges and tail-dragging depressions to manage. While the Tacoma felt like it used the most of its TRD Pro potential and sent more of its suspension chatter into the cabin, the 4Runner was yawning at its lower-speed challenge. The eye-opener on the 4Runner was the Trail model-based interior, which is pretty nice nowadays. Both offer the steering and brake predictability and sensitivity you want for off-roading.

Furthermore, the 4Runner and Tacoma are similar at the component level. The exteriors are touched up with black badges, unique front grilles, and TRD alloys. Both sub in softer Eibach springs for the front axle, creating a 1-inch and 2-inch lift for the 4Runner and Taco, respectively. Bilstein 2.5-inch coilover monotube shocks contribute an extra inch of travel to both. The two retain their factory leaf and coil springs in the rear, bolstered by upgraded 2.0-inch shocks with remote reservoirs. Travel increases 1.5 inches out back for the Tacoma and 1 inch for the 4Runner. Tire selections are 265/70-16 (30.5s) BFGoodrich All-Terrain T/A KOs on the Taco and 265/70-17 (31.5s) Nitto Terra Grapplers on the 4Runner. Anti-roll bars and rubber bump stops are unchanged from their non-Pro counterparts for all three.

Tying the three TRD Pros together is the 3-year/36,000-mile factory warranty and the assertion that the large shocks will keep on going in harsh conditions where other OE dampers would fade away. Durability testing was carried out in California's vast southeastern desert. We heard that one day during desert testing the TRD team was advised by a local to not take their stock-looking vehicles through a difficult obstacle. They went anyway and made it.

There's tremendous anticipation surrounding the trio. Toyota plans to assemble just 7500 TRD Pro 4Runners, Tacomas, and Tundras for the 2015 model year, and last we heard, customer interest has been spectacular. If you're late to the game, you may be best off trying for a 4Runner. Projected demand for the Tacoma is running three times greater than expected supply, the Tundra is seeing about two raised hands for each truck, and the 4Runner is about where it's predicted to sell. But if all you really want are the individual suspension parts for your own 4Runner, Tacoma, or Tundra, you'll be able to order them over the dealer parts counter soon after the entire series is released this fall.

That's not what the Ironman will be doing, though. He'll take his future Tundra TRD Pro in black...