Driving The Life-Size Tonka Toyota 4Runner

“Man, that’s a long way down,” I think, as my left foot dangles above the ground at an elevation of about two and a half feet, but which looked like 10 stories from my eyes’ point of view. There is no stepping out of the new, one-off Tonka Toyota 4Runner. You look. You pray. You breathe. Then you leap.

Getting in isn’t much easier, I’d discovered about 30 minutes prior. But getting in is exactly what I had come to do. Tonka had brought some of its real-life toys and asked us to come play in the dirt. It was childhood dream come to life. I’d find my way into that driver’s seat if I had to use ropes and a pulley.

The toys—very, very pricey toys—also include a yellow Tonka Ford F-250 and a red Tonka Tundra “fire truck,” the latter featuring dozens of twinkling LED strobes, a fire truck siren, and a bed-mounted T-shirt cannon.  Both of those big boys wear mud flaps the size of card tables, and each has made many appearances at off-road motorsports events around the country to help promote Tonka’s legendary brand. But the world debut of the Tonka 4Runner is what prompted us to leave our desks and head to Tonka Motorsports driver Myan Spaccarelli’s compound in Simi Valley, California.

SUVs may dominate the mall parking decks of America, but this Tonka Toyota is anything but anonymous. Narrower and shorter in length than the burly full-size pickups, the Tonka 4Runner looks particularly badass perched up on its 10-inch lift kit, wearing a web of Bulletproof-designed welded bumpers, roof racks, and bodyside ladders, each of which are veritable works of art. The Tonka 4Runner’s massive Mickey Thompson 38x15-inch Baja MTZ tires are set on a wide chassis, placing most of the tread far outside the fenders of the matte-wrapped body. Ultra Motorsports Type 250 Colossus wheels are painted—what else?—Tonka Yellow and measure a huge 20 inches in diameter and a full foot wide, each emblazoned with the Tonka name painted in a font so large it can be read from a block away.

The vast space between the tires and the body provide for clear viewing of the King 8” x 2.5” and 10” x 2.5” coil-overs and shocks, as well as various Bulletproof suspension pieces (it helps that they’re more or less chest-level). With its plethora of Rigid Industries LED light bars, you could park the Tonka 4Runner on a peninsula and it could double as a lighthouse.

Inside, the seats have been reupholstered by Roadwire leather interiors and a zillion-watt sound system was installed, the better with which to blast music out the back as one tosses trinkets to the kiddies (and adults) that invariably swarm the vehicle wherever it’s parked—as certain a fate for the 4Runner as it has been for its brethren.