Comparison Tests
From the November 2015 issue
It's an on-the-nose, obvious, literal, and okay, shallow idea: Pit the transmogrified Toyota Tacoma against the fresh-enough Chevrolet Colorado during a journey from Tacoma to Colorado. Get it?
“It’s pointless,” mumbled senior editor Tony Quiroga as he was “volunteered” for co-driving duty on this adventure.
“It’s not an adventure, it’s a boondoggle,” he continued. “It has nothing to do with pickups. Neither truck is assembled in Tacoma or Colorado. Tacoma is a city and Colorado is a state. It’ll be all droning on highways with intermittent panic stops for photos. There’s no place to test and . . . hey, there’s this strip-mall teriyaki joint near Yakima that’s got 77 awesome reviews on Yelp!”
But Quiroga was wrong—and not just about that lousy teriyaki sinkhole he stuck us in. These mid-size 4x4 trucks are built for both mountain-goating up a rocky trail and trudging from the Morningwood Apartments to the Initech parking lot every workday. They have to carry everything a pool cleaner needs without rotting away from chlorine spills, and be comfortable enough over the hours spent searching out the perfect fishing spot along the Platte River. And they’re supposed to look adorable with a pair of huskies in the bed.
With such a broad appeal and range of uses, virtually any test of these trucks has some validity. And no test can be comprehensive enough. This drive was as good a test as any other.
It’s hard to tell, but this dust-colored Toyota Tacoma is actually the new model. The refined Chevy Colorado is gray, inside and out.
To some, the northwestern part of the country is where freedom reigns and herbal cultivation is a right. To others, it’s where people have massive stashes of survival gear. Either way, it’s a region with big spaces between pockets of civilization, inhabited by people who prefer trucks. After all, you need something to haul the freeze-dried entrees and hydroponic grow lights back to your secure compound.
So we grabbed a $37,665 preproduction Tacoma TRD Off-Road Double Cab 4x4 short bed from Toyota’s launch event near the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, while GM liberated a $38,720 Colorado LT Crew Cab short bed from the lot at Roy Robinson Chevrolet in nearby Marysville. Starting from the base of Mount Rainier, about an hour and a half southeast of Tacoma, and concluding at the top of Pikes Peak, just west of Colorado Springs, well, that would be more than 1300 miles by itself. But with side trips for some light off-roading and exploration, the whole voyage would stretch beyond 1900 miles. Meaning four days of concentrated use, each day winding up with a sumptuous chain-restaurant meal and a bed at a Hampton Garden Express by Marriott. It was a great journey of discovery. Observed Quiroga: “Olive Garden’s salad is always cold and crisp.”
Once we crossed Washington State, most of the driving was along highways in Idaho, Utah, and Wyoming—enlightened states where 80-mph speed limits are common. Cutting across the Sawtooth National Forest on Idaho’s Ponderosa Pine Scenic Byway put the trucks on curvy velveteen pavement, while the gravel trails that spider-vein off it gave us an opportunity to slide around.
After Ford dumped the Ranger in 2011 and Dodge/Ram bumped off the Dakota, and then when GM pulled the original Chevrolet Colorado and GMC Canyon after 2012, the mid-size truck segment was effectively ceded to Toyota. Sure, the Nissan Frontier and the odd Honda Ridgeline were around to pick up the scraps and the eccentrics, but it was surely the Taco’s time. Toyota had every right to grow complacent as it sold 155,041 Tacomas last year. That’s despite the truck having last been redesigned back in 2005.
Complacency is, however, dangerous. Despite the Tacoma’s continuing success, when GM introduced new mid-size pickups last year, the result was an instant expansion of the market. The GM plant in Wentzville, Missouri, that assembles the trucks has been running flat-out while cutting back on shift breaks in a furious attempt to squeeze out enough trucks to meet demand. We expect Chevy and GMC will sell 115,000 of these trucks in 2015. This is a real sales battle that Toyota may not have seen coming.
What’s missing from both trucks is innovation. They’re both still steel-bodied, ladder-frame throwbacks with solid rear axles riding on leaf springs. Both have straightforward, naturally aspirated V-6 engines. Meanwhile, up in the full-size ranks, there’s more aluminum afoot, turbocharged V-6s are challenging V-8 hegemony, and the half-ton Ram rides on coil or air springs. There are opportunities for creativity here that neither GM nor Toyota is exploiting.
Sure, GM has brought a turbocharged diesel to the class, and that should be fascinating even though it only mimics what most of the world already has. But the wild card may soon prove to be Honda’s upcoming Ridgeline. Also, Nissan is likely to update its Frontier soon, too, using the Navara pickup that’s sold in the rest of the world as a general template.
By the time we were in the cafeteria line of rental cars and Harleys climbing Pikes Peak, it was apparent which truck we preferred. Then, as we scanned across the glorious horizon from the 14,115-foot summit, we pondered why it is that Pikes Peak, like so many other great American attractions, is crowned by a crappy gift shop.
