The ongoing war for worst weather at an auto show rages year after year between Detroit and its North American International Auto Show in mid January and the Chicago Auto Show here at the McCormick Center.
Last year, Detroit took the title with single digit temperatures and subzero wind chills. Jump to 2016, and Chicago is in the driver’s seat with Windy City chills checking in the negative 20s.
While temperatures like that make for rapid, tight-buttocked walking for journalists hustling into the convention center for the press preview days, they make a perfect backdrop for a new truck perfectly adapted to chew up and spit out even the worst winter conditions.
Also: 2016 Chicago Auto Show: 2017 Chevrolet Camaro 1LE
The 2017 Toyota Tacoma TRD Pro is buttressed and bulked up with a special trim package making it the toughest Tacoma available to the average consumer. I test drove the standard versions of this truck and already declared it one my favorite midsize pickups. This TRD Pro makes an already capable truck into a bit of a four-wheeled superhero.
The evolution of the Tacoma TRD Pro is all about its suspension. Admittedly, the terminology and engineering behind such toughening of the truck are more technical and less accessible for the average buyer. While most people understand cylinders and liter measurements for engines alongside horsepower numbers, but the shock of beefed up suspension takes a little longer to absorb.
To make this Tacoma TRD PRO the most off-road, all weather capable version Toyota sells, the automaker loads up FOX 2.5 Internal Bypass shocks tuned by TRD (Toyota Racing Development). Add to that TRD-tuned front springs with a 1-inch lift and TRD-tuned rear suspension with a progressive-rate off-road leaf spring.
The end result is an off-road machine that can maintain more aggressive driving at speed.
If only they’d been running between the parking structure and the McCormick, we could’ve been saved a lot of wind burn.
