2014 Toyota Highlander offers a more fashionable appliance

There's no more dismissive label among the car cognoscenti than "appliance," and there's no vehicle that embodies the ideal of what such a vehicle aspires to be than the Toyota Highlander. The three-row, soft-driving family hauler ranks second only to the Ford Explorer in sales, with Toyota finding homes for 121,055 last year, which the snobbish among us would call proof that Americans love nothing more than an achiever who never offends. For the 2014 update, Toyota gave the Highlander a dose of fashion, but kept its appliance-abilities intact. Think less Frigidare, more Viking.