Marouane Bembli, who is better known as The Sketch Monkey on social media, fired up the Photoshop suite in order to redesign the 2025 Toyota 4Runner. Best described as being a mild alternation of an otherwise great-looking sport utility vehicle, his vision is pretty straightforward.
Bembli starts by flattening the front end of the 4Runner TRD Pro, taking inspiration from the 2024 model. The biggest change over the real thing is the deletion of the handlebar mustache-like element splitting the upper and lower grilles, therefore switching from double to single handlebar stache.
Marouane also blacked out the lower part of the bumper, although the pixel artist refrained from giving said part the glossy finish of the fender flares. At the rear, he lengthened the taillights and tidied up the lower extremities of the rear quarter panels. He also refashioned the lower parts of said panels in black, thus bringing them closer to the rear bumper.
The before and after speaks volumes, but even so, Marouane believes that Toyota's design is – "generally speaking – fantastic." Subjectively, one could say that 4Runner looks meaner than Land Cruiser. In any case, certain peeps have incorrectly presented the all-new 4Runner as being a direct competitor to the four-door Ford Bronco and Jeep Wrangler.
That's not actually true, for the 4Runner is a three-row sport utility vehicle and the 250-series Land Cruiser features two-row seating in this part of the world. Because there's no other mid-size SUV with three rows and body-on-frame construction available in the United States as of April 2024, it would be correct to say that 4Runner is in a class of its own.
Photo: The Sketch Monkey on YouTube
Last year, the 4Runner moved 86,594 units compared to 105,665 for the Bronco and 156,581 for the Wrangler. The outgoing 4Runner starts at $40,705 compared to $39,630 and $31,995 for the indirect competition, meaning that the sixth-gen Toyota 4Runner will be pricier still from the outset.
The Land Cruiser is prohibitively expensive, though, because of the storied nameplate and the standard hybrid powertrain. 4Runner comes with the non-hybrid version of the 2.4-liter turbo I4 as standard, whereas the i-FORCE MAX is available on the TRD Off-Road and Limited. The dune-bashing TRD Pro, rock-crawling Trailhunter, and swanky Platinum are i-FORCE MAX by default.
Similar to the Tacoma with said powertrain, the 2.4-liter turbo inline-four engine is joined by an electric motor integrated into the eight-speed transmission. The 48-hp electric drive unit is joined by a 1.87-kWh battery of the NiMH variety. All told, Toyota quotes 326 horsepower and 465 lb-ft (630 Nm).
i-FORCE without MAX stands for 278 horsepower and 317 lb-ft (430 Nm), or eight ponies and quite a bit more peak torque than the good ol' naturally aspirated V6 of the 2024 model. EPA fuel economy ratings are not available at the moment of reporting, but you should be able to squeeze out more than 17 miles per gallon (13.8 liters per 100 kilometers) combined. The auto-equipped Tacoma, by comparison, is rated at 21 to 23 mpg (11.2 to 10.2 l/100 km) without hybrid assistance. The manual, which isn't available on the 4Runner, makes do with 20 mpg (11.8 l//100 km) combined.
After a 1:43 scale model of a Ferrari 250 GTO sparked Mircea's interest for cars when he was a kid, an early internship at Top Gear sealed his career path. He's most interested in muscle cars and American trucks, but he takes a passing interest in quirky kei cars as well. Full profile
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