- [Fuller] There is no shortage of OEM manufacturers
beefing up their own cars and trucks.
I mean do you really think all
these engineers just want everything
to look good, get good gas mileage,
and be safe? No! Well soft of, thought.
So they need to make those cars so that
they have money to do cool things on the side.
So for example, with Ford, you've got
the SVT group; Ram has its SRT crew;
Chevy has Chevrolet Performance,
which doesn't really have a cool name;
BMW has its M division; Mercedes has AMG,
and the list goes on and on. I mean
Porsche pretty much developed the
Cayenne and Macan, to sell to doctors' wives,
just so that they could fund the radically cool
911 variants that actually loose the company money.
But in the truck world, there is
one group that stands out among the rest
when is comes to their cult-like following.
I'm Fuller from Custom Offsets,
and today we are jumping into the driver's seat
to find out what's the hype with TRD.
(rock music)
So if you don't already know,
TRD stands for Toyota Racing Development
and its history goes back way further
than just the TDR Tacomas, Tundras, and 4Runners.
Now I'm not going to spend a bunch of time on it,
but basically, TRD used to be called Tosco.
And it was born for car racing and,
they won a number of races in the 50s and 60s,
and helped develop some really cool cars,
like the 2000 GT, that kinda looks like
it wants to be a Ferrari and you've
probably never even heard of it.
It wasn't until 1979 that TRD USA was founded
and the name officially switched.
Throughout the 80s and into the early 90s,
TRD was building some pretty insane
rallycross cars and dominated the WRC Safari Rally.
The 90s is also when TRD put its eyes
on off road and started winning
championships in nearly every category.
We're talking about wins at Pike's Peak,
the Baja 500, the Baja 1000, and
from 97 to 2007, Tocomas won seven
consecutive pro light manufacturer's
titles and driver championships.
In 1997, as more and more drivers
became aware of TRD's racing efforts,
particularly in regards to off road racing,
Toyota decided to create a vehicle
that customers could buy from Toyota dealers
that was already outfitted with TRD parts.
This was the optional TRP Offroad Package.
Fast forward to 2008, and you could even
find special edition TRDs equipped
with a factory supercharger.
It's basically a special edition of a special edition.
The 2008 Stage Three Stewart Signature Series
Tundra had a whooping 500 horse power,
and 500 foot pounds of torque,
plus Alcoa wheels, BFG tires,
two-inch bilstein leveling struts up front,
as well as Hella performance lights, all from the factory.
Most recently, Toyota has started offering
the TRD pro series Tundra, Tacoma, and 4Runner.
These are the most adventurous TRD models offered.
You get an amazing mix of TRD engineering
and head turning style, all in a turnkey model,
that you can drive right off the lot
and straight to the desert or forest
or wherever really, because they
genuinely are very capable trucks.
Even the little TRD pro 4Runner.
- You can climb up your latter
to the top of your roof? Hm? Your TRD Pro?
- So what makes these TRD trucks so desirable?
Well in the Tacoma for example,
there's a few different TRD trims.
You got the TRD Sport, the TRD Offroad, and
- the TRD Pro.
- The TRD Pro.
Now the TRD Offroad is my personal favorite
because it has the rear-locking diff,
terrain select and crawl control,
all for the same MSRP price as the TRD Sport.
Now, obviously, I would choose the TRD Pro
- TRD Pro
if money wasn't an object because then
you get a lot of cool factory options,
like Rigid Industries Fog Lights.
You get smoked out headlight housings.
You get the awesome TRD Pro grill,
that's like the vintage Toyota one.
And you get aluminum skid plates.
You also get some better looking wheels
on the TDR Pro, but like usual, that's something
that I would just pop off and replace anyway.
There are so many good looking options
for any of the TRD Trucks, really.
Venomrex, Method, 1552, some of the new fuel lineups.
Centerline has some awesome off road stuff.
And as far as tires go, I'm pretty sure every
Toyota guy I know either runs the
Falcon Wildpeak AT3W or the Goodyear Wrangler Durtracs.
Aside, from all the cool features,
and what makes TRD so popular,
is the heritage of Toyota making
reliable trucks for over 50 years.
Plus we can't forget about the
equally capable, Land Cruiser products.
So these new trucks have bilstein shocks
from factory, electronic blocking redifferentials,
different terrain management, crawl control
which is like cruse control for the off road
world and a bunch of other factory upgrades.
You can order TRD wheels, TRD intakes,
TRD exhaust, TRD sway bars, springs,
and the list really goes on and on.
I mean there are TRD quickshifters,
special TRD clutches, TRD breaks.
Pretty much any part that you might
want to replace or upgrade,
there is a TRD version of it.
Granted, there isn't a true TRD lift kit,
so you'll still need us for that,
but even then, just throwing on
some icon suspension, or something
is going to give you a very capable off road rig.
So what do you think? Do the TRD packages
justify their higher price tag?
Let us know in the comments down below. Peace.