The Town Ace, locally known as the Toyota Lite Ace, has some pretty interesting specs over in Japan. That said, they don’t get the pickup and UV versions over there, but it’s the mechanical bits that caught our attention.
In its home market, you can only get it in one body style, which is as a van. Technical specs are similar to what we get, but we like the fact that one can get it with all-wheel drive and a manual.
Yes, you read that right. Okay, the lack of a low range transmission immediately rules it out of hardcore trails. But while it won’t go where Prados and Land Cruisers go, it should be plenty capable enough to get to most camping (or glamping) site. It uses a permanent all-wheel drive system, so it just constantly feeds power to all four wheels. Oh, and there’s a center differential lock, too.
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A pretty neat canvas for a mini overlander, yes? The best part is, the Japanese-spec Town Ace comes with back seats standard. Crucially, it easily flips out of the way to make up more space. It’s essentially the model we’ve been craving for quite some time already.
We mentioned that it comes with a manual. It’s the same five-speed ‘box we have here locally, but there’s also an option for a four-speed automatic. Admittedly, there is a fuel economy penalty for choosing the all-wheel drive. Toyota lists a loss of 1km/L versus the standard two-wheel drive models and another loss of 0.4km/L with the automatic. Power comes courtesy of a 1.5-liter engine with 97hp and 134Nm.
Other neat touches? Surprisingly, it comes with basic advanced driver assists. Of course, it doesn’t have adaptive cruise of any of that, but there is forward collision warning with autonomous emergency braking, along with lane departure warning and automatic high beams. Not bad for something that first came out in 2007.
While the chances of an all-wheel drive Toyota Lite Ace coming here are slim to none, we’d still like to see a passenger version of it someday. Besides, there’s still room for basic, unpretentious family transport here, and that version will surely bring back memories of the one that came out in the ‘90s.
