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Meet The Toyota RAV4 You'll Actually Want To Drive

The Toyota RAV4 is an appliance. It fulfills its purpose in getting you from A to B but offers little by way of excitement. And that’s fine, because the mother of two simply wants to make her daily school runs in a safe, comfortable, reliable environment that does its best to drown out the inevitable squabbling deriving from the second row.

But what if you want more?

Behold, the RAV4 rally car — an off-road racing variant that proves beige doesn’t have to be boring.

Let me address the obvious WTF: Yes, a Toyota RAV4 will be competing in the 2WD class during some of this year’s Rally America events. And yes, a category dominated by rally-prepped Fiestas — some with sequential gearboxes — will now feature a grocery-getting, unibody SUV.

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And that’s brilliant.

This racy RAV4 will be piloted by off-road racing expert and BAJA 1000 winner Ryan Millen. It boasts TEIN suspension, BF Goodrich all-terrain tires, a roll cage and a diet that sheds 500 lbs. of flab. It also rocks eye-catching graphics that make it look like a boy-racer’s dream ride. (Who needs a Subie?)

And yet — like many rally cars — it still features the stock 2.5-liter four-cylinder engine, pushing just 176 hp and 172 lb.-ft. of torque. There’s also no sequential transmission, just the production six-speed automatic.

So this RAV4 is no monster, but then it doesn’t have to be. I drove a 2009 B-Spec Honda Fit in a Rally America event last year and had the time of life — with just 117 hp.

Like all rally cars, this RAV4 must be street legal for the road sections and yet capable of handling the toughest gravel stages in the country. It must manage jumps with ease and float over potholes the size of small quarries. It will also need to absorb the odd thump from a giant tree.

But most of all — a prerequisite for any racing machine — it needs to look awesome: This RAV4 most definitely does, something I never thought I’d say about a washing machine on wheels.