NO, THIS ISN’T some kind of late April Fool’s gag, Toyota has actually made a full-size Tonka Truck. Woohoo! Based on the seemingly invincible HiLux, this Tonka Concept has been built to mark not only Tonka’s 70th birthday, but also the 80th year since Toyota’s incorporation.
A full-size dream toy for adults, the HiLux Tonka Concept is a cool rock-crawling truck in dramatic black-and-yellow livery. Underneath the paintwork of the HiLux Tonka Concept is the top-of-the-range production HiLux – the SR5 double cab with a 2.8-litre four-cylinder turbo-diesel engine.
Toyota’s creative engineers have raised the ride height of the standard HiLux by 150mm to add even more ground clearance and the suspension has been beefed up to cope with whatever hills and sandpits your back garden can throw at it. Huge 35-inch tyres, a reinforced nudge bar on the front and air intakes high enough to get altitude sickness all ensure that nothing will get in the way of this monster.
Compensating for all that additional heavy duty gear is a carbon fibre bonnet and tailgate and there is a 6mm alloy plate underneath the engine to protect the sump. Other essential equipment includes spare fuel cans for when you really go off the beaten track, high lift jacks, shovels, and a fire extinguisher. Sounds like your typical family roadtrip, right?
Nicolas Hogios from Toyota Product Design team, said:
We have taken Tonka out of the sand pit and reinvented HiLux from top to bottom and from nose to tail, inspired by the Tonka trucks that kids play with in their backyards.
Whilst we sadly won’t be seeing the Toyota HiLux Tonka Concept in showrooms, if you live in Australia you will be seeing it in the metal at various four-wheel drive shows, field days and expos around the country. You lucky people you.
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