They say everything's 20/20 in hindsight, and the idea of making SUVs out of cars was placed in the DUH file years ago. But what about foresight? Even by the mid-90s, SUVs had a mosquito-like presence in the atmosphere, yet it took Toyota to figure out that nimbler, thriftier, more comfortable SUVs were the future... and deliver one. Then again, they'd been doing that in other segments for decades. Maybe it was hindsight after all.
Let's just call it insight, for Toyota's original Recreational Active Vehicle with 4-Wheel-Drive (RAV4, get it?) of 1996 used its cleverly reconfigured Camry chassis to become a runaway success. Considering the 120-horsepower engine, maybe "walked" or "crawled" away would be more fitting, but speed aside, the smooth-driving RAV4 was widely loved for being the cute little runt in a world of lumbering primitives, and maintained that rep even among the droves of cute little imitators that soon followed.
But even when you're top of your class, high school can get old after ten years. So to push things forward, father Toyota bought the kid some adult clothes, such as the all-grown-up gray suit you see here. SUVs today need to have presence, and going by the wider-taller-longer body, there sure is a lot more present. Finally, the RAV4 has undergone two defining rites of passage, gaining both a third row of seats and some serious underhood artillery (read: a big V6), all backed by a performance-themed marketing campaign to let the world know it can crush all of its peers.
We all gotta grow up sometime.
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