Toyota was building an Avalon pickup but then killed it

The Toyota Avalon was designed as a four-door sedan but, at some point, the Japanese automaker briefly considered turning it into a pickup truck.

About 20 years ago, Toyota flirted with this idea, and even unveiled a concept vehicle to preview a potential production version.

Nothing ever came of it, though.

But the reason is understandable.

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The Toyota Avalon was launched as a four-door sedan in 1994.

It was primarily designed for the North American market, and it remained in production across five generations and four decades.

In 2003, Toyota Australia unveiled the X-Runner concept, above, which was a pickup truck, or a ute, as they call it in Australia

At that point, Toyota Australia turned to Toyota, its parent company, and asked for approval to mass produce the vehicle, but the answer was no.

The reason was actually quite simple.

At the time, Toyota already had a variety of trucks in its lineup, mostly aimed at the North American market.

So the automaker simply couldn’t see potential for a much smaller truck, which is what the Avalon would be, in any other market other than, maybe, the Australian one.

In other words, the risks of putting it into production were real, but the benefits were unclear.

The Avalon lived on for another 20 years before being replaced by the Crown Crossover.

Today, the Avalon is only available – in small numbers – in China.

Unfortunately – or fortunately, depending on perspective – automakers operate under a very simple principle.

At the end of the day, it’s all about sales, so if a model doesn’t sell, it’ll get canned.

By contrast, if a car sells, we can expect more versions of it.

That’s what happened, for example, with the Mustang Mach-E, which is going better than expected, and is now potentially spawning a spin-off version in the form of a sedan.

We’ve seen it happen with so many cars in the past.

But the good news is the car world is cyclical.

After decades, for example, Renault is bringing back both the Renault 5 and the Renault 4. Although they won’t be quite as cool as the Batmobile the marque recently unveiled.

So, sooner or later, the Avalon will be back, too.

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