![[toyota-ft-4x-concept, Image: Toyota]](https://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/Toyota-FT-4x-Concept-46-610x407.jpg)
Toyota has hinted in the past that perhaps fielding one vehicle per segment is foolish, old-timey thinking. At the same time, automakers have fallen in love with the idea of splitting segments, shoehorning tweener models into any narrow wedge of daylight that appears in their already crowded lineups. General Motors is especially preoccupied with this.
It’s against this backdrop that a new U.S. trademark application filed by Toyota emerges, and the name provided only bolsters speculation that the company’s light truck stable is due for a new member.
The application for “4Active”, filed on December 9th and first noticed by Motor1, is naturally vague, sounding like the name of a new all-wheel drive system or a standalone utility vehicle. It’s most likely the latter.
Bolstering this assertion is a summertime announcement from Toyota regarding its yet-to-open joint assembly plant in Alabama. The $1.6 billion facility, shared with Mazda, will start cranking out vehicles in 2021, but the Corolla production originally slated for the plant will instead swap to a “new, yet-to-be-announced SUV.”
It is believed the mystery utility vehicle will be a production version of the 2017 FT-4X Concept — a small, sub-RAV4 crossover that boasts the rugged exterior and all-wheel drive capability the brand’s subcompact C-HR lacks. If you’ll recall, that concept bowed with some of the most infuriating marketing copy ever put on a page.
Shortly after the concept’s New York debut, Toyota suggested there was room for more than one vehicle in a hot segment. With the RAV4 a sales leader and the C-HR considerably less so, the low end of the Toyota CUV totem pole seems like a good place to add a new vehicle. Ford executives chose to tread a similar path for the 2020 Escape and upcoming “baby Bronco” — a butchier, alternatively styled version of the same vehicle. Mazda went the segment-splitting route in its product plan, inserting the CX-30 between the subcompact CX-3 and compact CX-5 for 2020. Not to be outdone, Chevrolet debuted the Trailblazer as its own subcompact/compact tweener.
The highly configurable FT-4X was created to attract fun-loving urban Millennials to the brand, and that demographic hasn’t fallen off Toyota’s radar in the years since. Expect to see the brand’s TNGA architecture put to use beneath the 4Active, if indeed the name heralds a new AWD CUV.
[Image: Toyota]
Winner.
I think the C-HR has been a bit of a bomb for Toyota. It doesn’t do anything better than the Corolla hatch and costs more. I was at the Toyota dealer yesterday picking up parts, and they had the same 5 C-HR on the lot as they did last time I was there, which was May.
While I doubt those are the exact same C-HRs, it’s quite easy to say the C-HR has been a bomb (despite somehow selling 3k-4k each month). It was designed with the same 2000s design aesthetic as the Crosstour, in a way. Utility last, just make sure it doesn’t look like a typical wagon or hatchback. The HR-V is actually not too different from the C-HR, it just has far more usability and doesn’t look nearly so ridiculous.
The concept here looks pretty great, I think, especially that retro looking front-end. The rest is kind of a mess, but we all know a production version would be toned down.
Toyota’s current styling in general is a mess.
Maybe the C-HR will be put out to pasture? I certainly won’t miss it.
I’m getting a little tired of this off-the-wall fun looking crossovers that never seem to happen. I’m looking at you Ford Bronco
It has been amusing to observe the increasingly level of “butchiness” being designed into crossovers. I can only assume Lesbians are an expanding car-buying demographic.
Designers always miss their demographic mark. It will be purchased by older people appreciating the tight turning circle, easy entry/exit and good visibility.
Although you could be right.
“Designers always miss their demographic mark.” I love that remark. Around here, every Element I’ve seen is driven by someone 50+. As a 70+ year old consumer, I can assure you that easy entry and exit from a car is a BIG selling point. Also, I would like to be able to see out of a car window, not peer through a mail slot. Lastly, although manufacturers would love to sell me an expensive new vehicle, the combination of fixed retirement income, driving fewer miles and having no need to impress anyone, steers me to some of these better priced “Bread Box” shaped vehicles. The shrinking SUV (or CUV) fits the bill for empty nesters in urban environments.
Totally agree with this. These are practical and affordable and easy to access and to park. Old urban people buy this type of vehicle.
Not just lesbians, I wouldn’t mind a crossover that didn’t look like such a generic mommy-car :(
Even better, how about something resembling a..wait for it..STATION WAGON!!! At a normal height, not something on stilts!!
I love these practical little rectangles.
‘Same here. I continue to see a surprising number of well-kept Honda Elements (and Kia Souls, of course) in my small city every day.
So they bringing the FJ Cruiser back?
Scion xB
RIP Toyota Sienna.
“Ford executives chose to tread a similar path for the 2020 Escape and upcoming “baby Bronco” — a butchier, alternatively styled version of the same vehicle.”
I think you meant, “baby Bronco” — a cheaper-to-build, sh!ttier, horribly styled version of the same vehicle.
Yes, the baby-Bronco that no one’s actually seen yet. When?
Well since we haven’t seen it yet I think it is a bit premature to call the baby Bronco horribly styled. I also doubt it will be cheaper to build, it will probably cost them about the same to build as the Escape but will probably have a higher ATP, and shouldn’t be any more or less sh!tty.
I saw the Mach E, and it will have to be cheaper to build than it and the Bronco itself.
A new Toyota targeted at young people. Didn’t they already try something like this 20 years ago called Scion? I could picture the commercial already. “ THIS IS NOT your fathers Toyota”
Besides there are already vehicles targeted at millennials (Used)
The Jeep Renegade with dubious Italian quality sells pretty well (I see a lot of them here in the midwest), so imagine what a quality Alabama built Toyota of similar configuration would do.
4Active IMO will be the motor-in-wheel tech that Toyota hinted in that EV white paper. Tank turns for everyone! Hell yeah!
Clean up the design excesses. Radically improve the visibility. And just maybe.
You’ll never see Macron or the other EU elite bureaucrats driving these “approved” lower Co2 vehicles.
Not much has changed in Europe, there’s still a form of feudalism. This time it’s disguised as saving the planet.
Giordi LeForge?
Dat concept photo tho. A Kia Soul with body lift and shitty visibility? It’ll sell. (I hate to admit it but I kinda like it.)
If it manages to be as off-road capable as a Renegade then it won’t be in vain.
what a miserable looking little $#!+box