Toyota 4Runner Sales Have Been on Quite a Ride over 40-Plus Years

Yahoo

28-01-2025

It's doubtful that the engineers behind the first Toyota 4Runner ever thought their creation would be much of a sales success. It was, after all, a pretty odd vehicle by 1984 standards, not a conventional sport-utility vehicle as we would come to know them, but more a pickup truck with the back of its cab cut away and a removable fiberglass top fitted. The first of them didn't even have rear seats mounted in the bed.
But by the mid-1990s, Toyota was selling well over 100,000 4Runners a year in the U.S., a trend that has continued pretty steadily into the current day. With the new one here and still sharing its roots with the Tacoma pickup, here's a look at how the 4Runner grew from a niche hunting and camping rig to Toyota's mainstay off-roader in the United States.
Elsewhere around the globe, it's the Land Cruiser that flies the flag for Toyota 4x4 prowess. While the nameplate has returned to the U.S. for the current model, it hasn't always been available in American showrooms. When Toyota first announced it was discontinuing the original FJ40, pulling it from the U.S. market, there was a space to fill.
At first, it wasn't Toyota itself that filled the gap. In spite of the importance of the Land Cruiser in establishing the company's presence in the U.S. (Land Cruiser sales kept the books in the black when the Toyopet sedan was floundering), the thought was that the same job could be done by the Toyota pickup. It could, but not without a little help.
A Wisconsin Toyota dealer contacted Winnebago and asked it to come up with something. Winnebago's solution was to take the short-wheelbase version of Toyota's pickup, remove the back of the cab, then fit a permanently fixed fiberglass canopy and a rear bench seat. The pickups came direct from Japan as cab and chassis as a workaround to avoid the so-called chicken tax, and most conversions were done at the Winnebago plant. Winnebago called it the Trekker. (One sold via Bring a Trailer auction a few years ago.)
Over about three years, the Trekker steadily sold in several hundred examples a year. Once totals hit more than 1000 (somewhere between 1200 and 1500 when production ceased), Toyota's marketing division figured there was proven demand. It launched the first 4Runner in 1983, and by 1984 the truck was selling in its familiar recipe, with bench seats and a removable rear canopy.
The first four years of 4Runner sales were solid but unremarkable: between 3600 and 6500 units per year. In 1988, demand exploded, and Toyota sold more than 20,000 4Runners for the first time, and then a third more on top of that for the next year. A V-6 was now available, and the 4Runner was thus a little more pleasant to drive in everyday use and on the highway.
Starting with the 1990 model year, the second-gen 4Runner was a complete departure from the original formula. You could still get a two-door variant, at least until 1993, but these were a complete steel body riding on a ladder frame shared with the pickup. More important, especially for sales figures, there was now a four-door version.
As with the previous generation, this new 4Runner was sold in other markets, including Japan, as the Hilux Surf. It could hardly be better named, as it was timed just right to catch the swell of demand for SUVs in the 1990s, with U.S. sales starting the decade in the high 40,000 mark and hitting just under 130,000 by 1997.
All told, the second-generation 4Runner accounted for a hair under 270,000 trucks, as compared to just over 42,000 for the first-gen machine. The third-generation 4Runner, sold from 1996 to 2002, was even more successful, more than doubling the sales performance of its predecessor.
These third- and fourth-generation 4Runners are quite popular with Toyota enthusiasts, as they're far more comfortable than earlier models while still being entirely rugged. There was also a V-8 version available, with stout towing capabilities. Unfortunately, the arrival of the financial crisis of 2007 and 2008, combined with rising fuel prices, cut 4Runner sales off at the knees. 2009 was a particularly bad year, with just 19,675 4Runners finding homes.
Introduced for the 2009 model year, the fifth-generation 4Runner began slowly clawing its way up the sales chart year by year. Sales were again over 100,000 by 2016, and they stayed level.
At first, the 4Runner was still very similar to Toyota's pickup, now branded as the Tacoma in the U.S. market. However, the SUV was built in Japan while the pickup was built in Mexico and Texas, and began to diverge when the Tacoma was updated for 2015 with a new 3.5-liter V-6.
The 4Runner soldiered on with the old 4.0-liter V-6 and five-speed automatic transmission combo. And on. And on. For a decade and a half, the only real change was Toyota adjusting the trim levels, issuing a few special editions, and facelifting the truck once. In spite of this unchanging nature, or perhaps because of it, 4Runner sales never wavered.
The 4Runner finished out 2024 with over 90,000 trucks sold, a slight reduction over previous years. However, this is largely due to supplies of the old model being drawn down as it was still hovering around an average of 10,000 4Runners a month sold until September.
There's plenty of interest in the new model, but how the faithful will greet the two new turbo-four powerplants, one a hybrid, is an open question. The Tacoma has been selling well, but the 4Runner may lose a little of its market share to the Land Cruiser it shares a showroom with.
But at least it still has the roll-down rear glass in the rear, something 4Runners have had since the get-go. The engineer behind that original two-door truck might be surprised to see the size, complexity, and technology carried by this new SUV.
But some of the same 4Runner spirit is still there too, and that's both what Toyota fans want, and what they vote for with their wallets.
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