This ’80s Inspired Toyota 4Runner SEMA Concept Is Rad, Bodacious And Far Out

Look, we don’t need to tell you that the ’80s and ’90s are like, totally tubular right now, especially in the world of cars. Just go to any car show, or pop onto any auction site and gasp at the prices being fetched by some ’80s performance icon that once seemed attainable. One car that somehow seems to have survived into the modern day with all its bodacious ’80s spirit intact is the Toyota 4Runner, so it’s no surprise that its manufacturer has leaned into the decade of excess for this concept.

Debuting at next week’s SEMA show in Las Vegas, it’s called the 4Runner TRD Surf, and is inspired by the popularity of the original 4Runner (appropriately known as the Hilux Surf in some markets) with the ’80s So-Cal surf scene.

To that end, Toyota has chopped out a big section of the body-on-frame SUV’s chassis to make it a two-door – something that’s not been seen in production since 1989’s second-gen 4Runner – and made the rear section of the roof detachable, a trend we wish would come back to today’s mega-bland selection of crossovers. It also allows the stowage of a couple of obligatory surfboards.

Widened arches cover a set of meaty 37-inch all-terrain tyres, and the concept sits on long-travel suspension with a set of billet aluminium front arms. The interior, meanwhile, is waterproofed for all the aquatic ’80s lifestyle activities you might engage in, and the front passenger seat has been engineered to flip forward for easy access to the open-air seating at the rear.

Thankfully, Toyota has stayed very much in the 21st century for the concept’s powertrain. It maintains the standard 4Runner’s setup of a 2.4-litre turbocharged inline-four, sending power via an eight-speed automatic to full-time four-wheel drive. There is a new custom exhaust for extra rortiness, though. That engine provides an excuse for some painfully ’80s Turbo graphics that appear as part of this car’s extremely jazzy nautical paint scheme.

The TRD Surf is the brainchild of Marty Schwerter. He sounds like a time-travelling ’80s surfer dude, but is in fact the director of operations at Toyota’s Motorsports Technical Centre. Schwerter said: “What makes this build so stellar has less to do with the changes themselves and more to do with the amazing way that they all work together—the result is truly greater than the sum of the parts.”

We can, like, totally get behind that. It would be extremely rad of you to build this, Toyota. And bring it to Europe, too.