Remember When Toyota Almost Ripped Off The Ford F-150

It seems Toyota has always struggled to win over full-size truck buyers in the U.S., where domestic trucks like the Ford F-150 and Chevy Silverado reign supreme. The Toyota Tundra may be popular among some buyers, but Chevy, Ram and Ford consistently outsell the full-size Toyota every year. The F-150 is often the bestseller in the U.S. altogether, but it nearly had a competitor from Toyota — if not in popularity, then at least in name.

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The first “full-size” truck that Toyota sold in the U.S. was the T100, and when it was due to be replaced, Toyota considered calling the new model the T-150. As you can expect, Ford wasn’t happy with the name, which was one letter removed from the F-150. As the Los Angeles Times reported back in 1998, Toyota agreed to drop the T-150 name in favor of another. Per the L.A. Times:

Toyota Motor Co. said it agreed to change the name of its new full-size pickup truck, the Toyota T-150, at the request of Ford Motor Co. Ford had complained that the name was similar to its F-150 brand pickup, the top-selling vehicle in the U.S. Toyota, the leading Japan-based auto maker in the U.S., hasn’t yet chosen a new name for its truck, which will go on sale in April. The company said it will choose an actual name, like its Tacoma model, rather than an alphanumeric designation. Toyota’s new pickup represents an effort to build sales in the surging U.S. truck market, which the Big Three have dominated. The new truck will replace Toyota’s T100, which will be phased out in August.

The new name Toyota settled on was the Tundra, but it would have made perfect sense for the T100 to become the T-150. Its unclear if the name would have included the dash between the first letter and numbers since the T100 didn’t. Either way, Ford argued the name was too similar to that of its own full-size truck, which had been called the F-150 since the ‘70s — slotting in between the F-100 and F-250.

The Toyota T-150 would go on to debut as the Tundra in 1999 instead. The new truck represented a big change for the original T100 and the second-generation, literally. Before the Tundra, the T100 was sort of an in-between model that wasn’t quite as big as trucks from Ford, Chevy and Ram, but was bigger than Toyota’s other model — called simply truck or pickup until it came to be known as the Tacoma in 1995.

The Toyota T100 was kind of like the current Honda Ridgeline in that it wasn’t really clear what segment the truck was in. The T100 struggled to find an audience due to its unusual size, and the truck’s relatively low power didn’t help; the V6 engines in the truck were two-cylinders down from domestic truck rivals. But I still think the T100 was a knockout in terms of design, with its long flat lines and tastefully-flared fenders.

Photo: Toyota