Checkered Flag Toyota

Toyota and Baja racing have become synonomous thanks to one man, Ivan "Ironman" Stewart, who has won the Baja 500 a record 17 times in Toyota's trucks. Despite Ford's obvious interest in wrestling away some of the dune jumping glory with its upcoming F-150 "Raptor", Toyota still dominates in the desert. The Japanese automaker is apparently celebrating that fact and the man who made it all possible with an Ivan "Ironman" Stewart Signature Series Tundra that will be available sometime this Spring. While not a whole lot of details are available from Motive Club where we found the story, we can tell you the truck gets big tires with deep treads, new alloy wheels, a tuned exhaust, lots of limited edition numbered badges and, get this, a shifter made from billet and carbon fiber that's modeled after Ivan Stewart's own grip. Very cool, and a little creepy, too. The truck also features a number of other upgraded components that are being supplied by Stewart's own sponsors, though they weren't listed in detail. It doesn't appear that power from the 5.7L i-Force V8 will be much improved, which means it should be no match for the "Raptor", whenever that truck arrives. But Toyota's got the backing of Iron Stewart himself behind its trucks, which is worth something in this game of one upsmanship.

[Source: Motive Club via Pickuptruck.com]

Toyota is readying its TRD supercharger for the Tundra, which should help sate those who hunger for extra horsepower in their truck. An employee of Toyota of El Monte, California and member of TundraSolutions.com revealed on his forum that TRD reps brought a Sequoia to his dealership equipped with the TRD supercharger mounted on the large SUV's 5.7-liter V8 – the same V8 in the Tundra. Not only did he say that TRD claimed a rating of 504 horsepower, an increase of 123 over the stock engine, but he also got the opportunity to ride shotgun while one of his fellow employees took it for a road test. Visit the Tundra Solutions forum to see the details of the kit and read about the test drive.

[Source: Tundra Solutions via PickupTruck.com]

Much has been made of the fact that Toyota is seemingly behind General Motors and other manufacturers in the race to adopt lithium-ion batteries as the future battery of the hybrid and electric vehicle market. Lithium-ion batteries pack more energy into less space than nickel metal hydride batteries, which are the current industry standard in hybrids. Could this delay in the adoption of lithium ion technology be because they have something better up their corporate sleeves for the next-next Prius? According to reports from Japan, Toyota may be investing in zinc-air batteries, which are currently popular only in your grandpa's hearing-aid. If the rumors are true, these new batteries would make up a big chunk of Toyota's plan on offering a hybrid version of every car it sells by 2020. In the meantime, expect to see lithium-ion batteries in future Toyota hybrid models until it's ready to unveil its newest battery technology, whatever that may be.

[Source: Automotive News, sub. req'd]