"This is the most American product launch in our history," Toyota's Jim Lentz told the crowd in the Riverview Ballroom, and moments later, a 2007 Toyota Tundra CrewMax crashed through a faux wall of girders... all Dodge style. Although Lentz called the CrewMax "the biggest of them all," it's actually not quite as long or tall as the Dodge Ram Mega Cab -- or Toyota's own long-bed Tundra Double Cab.
However, it does have the most rear legroom (44.5 inches) of any pickup on the market and with the sliding/reclining seat scooted all the way back, six-footers can cross and uncross their legs without once grazing the front chairs with a steel-toed workboot or moldy flip-flop.
But really, who needs this much room in a vehicle? "Well," said Brian Smith, Toyota's corporate truck operations manager (and devoted Tundra driver), "you get all that room -- or when you're picking people up at the airport, you can slide the seat forward and put luggage inside the cab if it's raining." We checked it out, and sure enough, with the 60/40 seat sections all the way forward, there's just enough space to wedge in a couple of carryon-size rollaboards.
Overall, a straightforward press conference, though "Tundra" was sprinkled so liberally throughout Lentz's prepared script that we started to picture a big guy with meathook-size forearms every time he repeated it. Try it yourself: "Towing is one of Tundra's greatest strengths."
(The) Tundra CrewMax goes on sale in early March -- one month after the rest of the Tundra lineup. For more details, read our full write-up on the CrewMax. --Erin Riches
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