The Toyota Tamaraw is back! If you’ve seen the news, this legendary Asian utility vehicle (AUV) will return to the country. Local production will begin in 2024.
Just like its right-hand-drive Rangga Concept twin from Indonesia, the left-hand drive Tamaraw Concept was previewed as a two-door standard cab with custom bodies that included a ‘Modern Jeepney’ version. I found its styling quite interesting for a utility vehicle. The first thought that came to mind is what it would look like as an MPV. I pitched the idea, and it looks like the team was thinking the same thing.
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Despite this being essentially a modern AUV, the Japanese carmaker’s designers gave the next-generation Tamaraw a lot of character. If you look hard enough, you’ll even see hints of the FJ Cruiser and the electric Compact Cruiser Concept in its styling. It features a unique door design that extends over the B-post and has its vertical door handle positioned at the edge. This layout won’t work if there are rear doors, so I had to revert to horizontal door handles in a more traditional position.
The lines that form a band that runs through the bottom and trailing edge of the original doors is now on the rear door. As with the original two-door standard cab version, the door area of the MPV is the widest part of the body if you exclude the bumpers and fender flares.
Mirroring the front styling, the rear quarter panels are flatter than the doors and allow the fender flares and bumpers to protrude more. The tailgate extends to the rear corners to give it a wide opening. The horizontal taillights are mounted on the main bumper. Slim vertical foglights are positioned on the outer bumper sections. The roof has a raised rear section to give extra headroom for second- and third-row passengers. After consulting with the team, we agreed that the steel wheels with full covers would be a more realistic representation of a standard-spec Tamaraw MPV.
Some of you might be asking, didn’t we make a modern Tamaraw rendering a few years back? The answer is yes, I did a semi-retro modern interpretation of the ’90s-era Tamaraw FX wagon last time. This time, I focused on using the next-gen Tamaraw’s new design language.
Would you consider this Tamaraw MPV if Toyota built it? Let us know what you think in the comments.
