Toyota kicked open the door to the party with its all-new 2007 Tundra full-size pickup truck for the lucrative U.S. large pickup market — only to find an empty room. Where was everybody?
Well, the economy had collapsed, causing full-size pickup truck sales to drop an estimated 50 percent. Toyota, which had built a $2.2 billion plant in San Antonio to build the new Tundra, was left with egg on its face. Here was a Toyota full-size pickup that finally was a direct challenge to domestic full-size pickups, with comparable size, power and capabilities.
There also were long faces at Ford and General Motors, which had made fortunes selling large pickups—long the top-selling vehicles in America. Chrysler wasn’t happy with the bombed-out pickup sales, either.
