Photo: abimelecdesign / Instagram
The results for the first six months of the year are in, and the American automotive market is still going strong even though some automakers are taking a few steps back.
For example, Stellantis nailed a massive second-quarter delivery drop of 21%, while General Motors barely kept its lead as King of the US market in front of Toyota. More precisely, GM slipped 0.4% year-over-year during the first six months of the year to 1,290,319 units, while Toyota narrowed the gap to just 103,672 vehicles behind General Motors and a total of 1,186,647 units, a rise of 14.3% after the first half of the year.
Things are going to heat up during the second half of the year when the Japanese company introduces even more new products like the all-new N380 sixth generation Toyota 4Runner – the family-oriented three-row mid-size SUV that usually competes with the likes of Jeep's Wrangler and Ford's Bronco. Speaking of the 4Runner, the latest iteration is not yet on sale – so the long-running N280 generation that premiered back in 2009 still added to the count with another 66,550 units.
That's not a bad performance – although it's fifteen years old (!), the N280 Toyota 4Runner sold better than all other SUVs in the family except for the ultra-popular RAV4 and also rose more than 29% compared to the first six months of 2023! Frankly, that's a mind-bending performance for a vehicle that's older than most customers' kids and is about to undergo a complete model changeover. Of course, not everyone dropped their jaw on the floor.
The imaginative realm of digital car content creators is hard to impress – they're the ones who are doing the creative thinking. A good case in point regarding the enduring success and popularity of the N280 Toyota 4Runner comes from Abimelec Arellano, a virtual artist better known as abimelecdesign on social media, who has prepared his newest wishful thinking project – and it's a bonkers 4Runner that may or may not cause fans to run amock crying their undying outrage. Beauty is only in the eye of the beholder, as always.
As such, it is no wonder the design project is mockingly nicknamed '4Ruinned' by the self-ironic author. It's not bad, though – for sure, there are Toyota fans out there who dreamed of using a 4Runner for street racing, right? Well, now they have some inspiration for a potential build from a pixel master that doesn't even like 'modern' Toyota 4Runner SUVs. Instead, he devilishly thought that taking a vehicle known for something specific (off-road, in this case) "and doing the complete opposite is always a lot of fun."
Aside from the fact that he thinks his unofficial design project now "just looks like a 2008 Subaru Forester," he ultimately came to like it. After all, he chose the style – inspired "a little bit by some classic Japanese tuning house cover cars, like the RE-Amemiya Mazda FC3S, Top Secret Supra, Varis body kits, and so on." Thus, it comes slammed on gold and chrome aftermarket wheels with matching gold Toyota badges, has an aerodynamic widebody kit that also includes carbon fiber bits and pieces, displays a 'pavement princess' attitude with neon lights, hood intake, dual rear wings, and also rides on wide performance tires.
Last but not least, the hashtags also hint at a big transformation under the hood – there could be a turbocharged 2JZ swap lying in there…
Things are going to heat up during the second half of the year when the Japanese company introduces even more new products like the all-new N380 sixth generation Toyota 4Runner – the family-oriented three-row mid-size SUV that usually competes with the likes of Jeep's Wrangler and Ford's Bronco. Speaking of the 4Runner, the latest iteration is not yet on sale – so the long-running N280 generation that premiered back in 2009 still added to the count with another 66,550 units.
That's not a bad performance – although it's fifteen years old (!), the N280 Toyota 4Runner sold better than all other SUVs in the family except for the ultra-popular RAV4 and also rose more than 29% compared to the first six months of 2023! Frankly, that's a mind-bending performance for a vehicle that's older than most customers' kids and is about to undergo a complete model changeover. Of course, not everyone dropped their jaw on the floor.
The imaginative realm of digital car content creators is hard to impress – they're the ones who are doing the creative thinking. A good case in point regarding the enduring success and popularity of the N280 Toyota 4Runner comes from Abimelec Arellano, a virtual artist better known as abimelecdesign on social media, who has prepared his newest wishful thinking project – and it's a bonkers 4Runner that may or may not cause fans to run amock crying their undying outrage. Beauty is only in the eye of the beholder, as always.
As such, it is no wonder the design project is mockingly nicknamed '4Ruinned' by the self-ironic author. It's not bad, though – for sure, there are Toyota fans out there who dreamed of using a 4Runner for street racing, right? Well, now they have some inspiration for a potential build from a pixel master that doesn't even like 'modern' Toyota 4Runner SUVs. Instead, he devilishly thought that taking a vehicle known for something specific (off-road, in this case) "and doing the complete opposite is always a lot of fun."
Aside from the fact that he thinks his unofficial design project now "just looks like a 2008 Subaru Forester," he ultimately came to like it. After all, he chose the style – inspired "a little bit by some classic Japanese tuning house cover cars, like the RE-Amemiya Mazda FC3S, Top Secret Supra, Varis body kits, and so on." Thus, it comes slammed on gold and chrome aftermarket wheels with matching gold Toyota badges, has an aerodynamic widebody kit that also includes carbon fiber bits and pieces, displays a 'pavement princess' attitude with neon lights, hood intake, dual rear wings, and also rides on wide performance tires.
Last but not least, the hashtags also hint at a big transformation under the hood – there could be a turbocharged 2JZ swap lying in there…
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