Toyota unveils refreshed 4Runner at Stagecoach Music Festival
In what it billed as its first debut at a music festival, Toyota unveiled the refreshed 2014 4Runner SUV on Saturday at the Stagecoach Country Music Festival in Indio.
Before a crowd dotted with flannel shirts and cowboy hats, and joined on stage by country star Dierks Bentley, the 2014 4Runner showed off a more aggressive style for Toyota’s venerable SUV.
The updated model has a more muscular front grille, bumpers and headlight design, and new LED taillights. The overall freshening gives the 4Runner a more blocky appearance, as if to reinforce that this tried-and-true SUV is not compromised crossover.
PHOTOS: 2014 Toyota 4Runner unveiled at Stagecoach Music Festival
Toyota said the 2014 model’s interior has been refined with leather trim and soft-touch door panels. The 4Runner comes in three trim levels; SR5, Limited, and Trail. All models come standard as five-passenger SUVs; the base SR5 and the Limited versions can be optioned with a third-row seat for extra passengers.
Mechanically, the 4Runner is unchanged. It’s available only with a 4.0-liter V-6 engine that makes 270 horsepower and 278 pound-feet of torque. It’s paired with a five-speed automatic transmission.
Two-wheel-drive is standard and four-wheel-drive remains an option. Fuel economy is rated at 17/23 mpg city/highway for the rear-wheel-drive 4Runner; the all-wheel-drive models get 17/22 mpg in city/highway driving. Towing capacity is rated at 5,000 pounds.
Toyota won’t announce pricing on the 2014 version until close to its September on-sale date, but don’t expect it to increase much over the current cost. The 2013 two-wheel-drive SR5 starts at $32,245.
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