Long bed would be perfect alternative for Santa's sleigh, if he planned to deliver a ton or so of the best homemade chocolates. Photo by John Gilbert.

When Toyota first decided to jump into the full-sized pickup market, truck guys scoffed at the idea that this Japanese company could compete with the already near-perfect pickups from Ford, Chevrolet or Ram.

But once it came out, the Toyota Tundra turned some heads, and in a subtle way, revolutionized the pickup market. My first impression way back then was to marvel at the quiet, smooth and almost luxurious demeanor of the Tundra, and in my own personal evaluation I summed it up by declaring the Tundra was “the Lexus of the pickup market.”

In recent years, I have been among the critics of Toyota, which seemed to stand on its technical laurels with the hybrid Prius, for example, and kept it basically unchanged while competitors came charging up and in some cases passed up Toyota as its technology aged.

When Toyota introduced a new Tundra for the 2022 model year, the complacency caught up with the company and its Tundra. What seems to have happened is that competitors realized how luxurious and feature-filled the Lexus interior was, and upgraded their interiors, over and over again.

The class-leading F150 Ford interior is now stunning in its appearance and features. The Chevrolet tried to keep pace but seemed to slip just a bit, but only because the Ram — formerly Dodge Ram — had made giant strides in appearance and interior features, focused directly on trying to beat Ford. At great expense, and with considerable surprise to me, Toyota has brought out an all-new Tundra for 2024 — vaulting right up and over its own “all-new” 2022 model and scoring some major points with its macho appearance and powerful upgrades in performance.

The test model I lived with for a week came about the time we all anticipated the first snowfalls of winter would have hit the Duluth Head of the Lakes area and the Iron Range of Northern Minnesota, which isn’t a surprise in mid-December. The surprise is that I got the truck, but we had gotten no snow, so checking out the full 4-wheel drive capability and versatility was not going to be forced upon us. The truck was the Platinum CrewMax, which, as the name implies, is loaded with luxury features and size.

The name platinum had nothing to do with the truck’s color, which was “Lunar Rock” according to the sticker sheet. Unwritten is that it also was a “TRD” trimmed truck, which adds Toyota Racing Division features such as skid-plates, raised ground clearance, beefed up coil-over Bilstein shock absorbers, with double-wishbone suspension up front and multilink rear and front stabilizer bar, providing a 1.1-inch front lift.

All that indicates you can send the big Tundra churning through the brush, sand and rocky terrain on your camping or fishing or hunting trip, but it doesn’t tell the story of the performance potential. The new Tundra was loaded with a heartier version of the corporate 3.4-liter twin-turbocharged V6, with 437 horsepower and 583 foot-pounds of torque, sending all that power through a 10-speed sequential automatic transmission, which shifts with smooth precision and can hurl the truck off like a dragster.

The twin transfer case has on-demand 4-wheel drive, and the turbochargers and variable valve-timing engine technology is bolstered by an electric motor/generator fitted in between the engine and transmission, turning it into Toyota’s most powerful of hybrid vehicles. It added to the truck’s power, and should assure the most performance.

What surprised me a bit was that a Toyota hybrid vehicle didn’t get great fuel economy. The EPA estimates are 19 city and 22 highway for miles per gallon, with a combined 20 for normal driving. We got about 14.7 miles per gallon scaling the hills of Duluth, so we took a trip up to the Iron Range to visit Canelake’s Candy shop in Virginia.

It was the typical late-fall day that we’ve experienced this year, although as we approached the Eveleth-Virginia area, the light and occasional drizzle turned itself into a bit of snow — enough so that I pushed the little button on the console and toggled it ahead to engage 4-by-4, just in case we found some slippery road surfaces.  

Because the test truck is loaded up with TRD trim and aimed at off-road versatility, Toyota didn’t bother installing any sort of running boards on the sides, which was no problem getting out because, well, gravity is a wonderful thing. Getting in, however, required some gymnastics ability. You can throw one foot up and in, then grab the grab-handle and pull yourself up and inside, although my wife, Joan, didn’t enjoy that challenge as much as I did, and she actually didn’t ever drive the Tundra.

I did all the driving, and found that the length of the CrewMax cab was substantial enough to provide room for at least three adults in the rear, but while some competitors hook a shortened bed onto such trucks, this one had a long, looo-oo-oong bed. So altogether, when you went to turn a normal 90-degree corner, you had to aim the high front end as though you intended to wipe out that car stopped perpendicular to turn onto your street, and only after you thought you might squash it, could you turn sharply and make the turn in your proper lane.

If you followed your basic instinct, your inside rear tire and its 20-inch wheel would bounce dramatically up and over the curb. The new Tundra wants to compete, but I’m not sure it had to also become oversized in its attempt to make its basic rounds.

Still, normal truck guys wouldn’t even hesitate at that, and they would be blown away by the outright comfort and luxury of the front bucket seats, and the proper firmness without being harsh of the Tundra’s ability to skip across road irregularities with comfort and grace.

For a base price of $69,035 and an as-tested sticker of $75,041, you get all of Toyota’s considerable safety measures. That price isn’t out of reach from the other full-sized and loaded pickups on the market these days. And some of the features are worth the price, such as pre-collision alert with pedestrian detection, active cruise with lane-departure alert and steering assist, lane-tracing assist, blind-spot monitor and tracker backup guide, trailer brake and trailer sway control, and JBL 12-speaker audio system with a subwoofer and amplifier.

As options, you also can get head-up display to read important items as you look through the windshield, and the transmission has a multi-terrain switch and crawl control as well as downhill assist. That means no matter what the conditions, you can remain secure in your heated and ventilated leather bucket seats, marveling at all the special feature switches — some of which are right where you might instinctively reach for them. I found that a number of the controls that I wanted to deploy were in unusual places, next to  unrelated items located one switch over.

On our way home, the hour drive down Hwy. 169 from Virginia, Minn., to Duluth, we were in a light and not threatening snowstorm, and it continued as we made out way back. It was still coming down as we passed several vehicles that had overdriven their steering on the divided highway, but we had no trouble in 4x4. As we got to about Hermantown, the light snow changed back to drizzle, and by the time we got downtown in Duluth, we were pleasantly surprised to find that even the drizze had let up.

As we headed out the North Shore toward our home, we found that it was still dry — no snow, no rain, and green grass. Just as we had left it, and just as it was since last May. We parked the big Tundra near our garage, looking over the odd array of switchgear, and noting that nothing was so complex that you couldn’t still suggest that the new and more powerful Tundra remains the Lexus of pickup trucks.