Every Little Off-Road Feature On the Toyota Tacoma Trailhunter, Reviewed

The 2024 Toyota Tacoma Trailhunter is kind of a caricature of an overland vehicle. It looks like it was driven straight out of a kid’s imagination, making it fun or embarrassing to be seen in depending on your disposition. I felt a bit of both during my test drive. The Trailhunter has all the trappings like a capable rig, but it looks like a toy. Or, really, it’s a lot of individual toys packaged together. They’re all pretty fun to play with.

The Trailhunter has so many interesting features and things to look at that I made a quick (long) video running through them, which you can watch here. Then we’ll rate those features on the two critical scales of coolness and usefulness.

When I was in high school, most of the conversations my friends and I had revolved around what modifications we planned to put on our cars. Reality usually reflected a small portion of the fantasies. I talked about having a show-winning tuner car while maxing out my budget with a salvage-title Integra and an aftermarket front bumper (unpainted, of course). Once I got into trucks, big tires, roof racks, and snorkels dominated my dreams. At the time, the best I could do was a rear ladder I ripped off of a dead Land Rover at a junkyard and some Hella fog lights off the rack at AutoZone.

All this to say—the Trailhunter’s loadout pretty much represents peak overland fantasy build. And it’s much wilder-looking than the modded rigs I’ve had; everything about it is dramatic. You’d think an army convoy was approaching when you see its barrage of lights at night. The intake noise from the snorkel is like a video game sound effect. And speaking of games, in this particular shade of Bronze Oxide, the Trailhunter has big Halo Warthog vibes.

Toyota Tacoma Trailhunter Overland Equipment and Bling Review

Since there are already plenty of Tacoma driving impressions online and, sadly, I wasn’t able to get the thing on a proper multi-day overland expedition, we’ll zoom in on the Trailhunter’s unique features for this review.

The Snorkel

Coolness: High Usefulness: Low

The Trailhunter breathes through a plastic elephant trunk creeping up the starboard A-pillar. This does not mean you can drive into five feet of water. In fact, Toyota does not call its snorkel a snorkel, this is a “high-mount air intake.” The idea is to let the engine grab cleaner, dryer air than any dusty, dirty muck you might be wheeling around in. Practically speaking, it adds drama to your driving experience because it’s pretty loud.

Intake air comes in from a vent near the top of the windshield, and then passes through the fender and into a standard airbox containing a filter element under the hood before moving to the throttle body.

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Stepping on the throttle treats you to an emphatic whhhish; the snorkel is effectively an instrument played by the truck’s engine. I loved listening to it, but my wife hated it—comments on our Instagram video (where you can hear the sound for yourself) are similarly mixed, so I’m curious to read what you (our commenters) here think.

I saw at least one comment claiming the sound was fake, but Toyota’s rep confirmed that “the turbo and wastegate noises heard from the high air intake are not pumped in or simulated.” I can confirm from my end that we didn’t dramatize the sound in the video either, what you hear is what my iPhone 13 picked up.

As for its actual functionality, there could be a real benefit in a dusty convoy situation which is common when you’re wheeling with friends. Toyota’s published a zillion specs on the 2024 Tacoma from horsepower to rear-seat hip room but no official max water fording depth is provided by the company. Toyota did confirm, however, that the raised intake reduces the engine power claim from 326 hp to 323. Negligible, not enough for the automaker to feel compelled to disclose it.

Frankly, I suspect its practical benefits are minimal. But if anybody gets the chance to go wheeling in the sand for a few days with one of these and a standard Tacoma, crack open the airboxes and see if the snorkle’d truck’s air filter is any cleaner, then email me pictures!

JBL Bluetooth Speaker

Coolness: Medium Usefulness: Low

A dashboard-integrated, Toyota-branded JBL Bluetooth speaker is a $255 option on this and other Tacomas. The sound quality and volume are good enough for a tailgate/hangout setting, and it’d be a neat accessory to have for the truck when it’s old.

There’s no reason you’d need this in addition to whatever Bluetooth speaker you already own. But I could see splurging for it—the novelty factor is decent. Just, please, don’t be one of those people who blasts music at night in a populated campground—enjoy the noises of nature and be a nice neighbor.

According to Toyota, this speaker boasts 10 hours of playtime on a charge, IPX7-rated waterproofness, and is linkable to other JBL Flex devices.

ARB Sport Bar

Coolness: High Usefulness: Low

The ARB sport bar, the rack-like thing behind the cab across the front of the bed, can hold 25 pounds on each of its gridded side areas. But its real function is to make the truck look cool (seeing a pattern?). It’s an expensive option at $1,450, but I will admit that it’s an elegant piece of industrial art. The irregular quadrilateral shape as viewed from the side has a lot of visual energy in it, and the swooping cross-brace makes it look simultaneously tough and sporty. I love looking at it, and would probably spring for it if I were buying one of these.

You can get a couple of other non-ARB branded bedside racks too, which look more functional but a little less stylish.

Auxiliary Lights and Switches

Coolness: High Usefulness: Medium

The Trailhunter has rectangular fog lights and a wider LED bar, all of which are neatly integrated into the truck’s face. The fog lights have a cool party trick, you can toggle them between white and yellow with a button on the dash. The light bar only does white, but it throws illumination a good way down the track.

Can’t say they felt necessary; the truck’s stock lights are pretty damn good on their own. The extra lights are undoubtedly fun to play with, though.

If you somehow still need more electronics up front than what Toyota provides, there are three pre-wired aux switches on the dash linked up to a harness you can easily tap into under the hood. Again, it doesn’t seem critical, but it is cool. All that stuff is part of the Trailhunter’s base loadout, anyway.

Bed Scene Lighting

Coolness: Medium Usefulness: High

Our test truck was equipped with a set of outwardly pointing lights on the bedsides, which is an optional function listed at $599. It’s good, and would certainly be handy in a making-up or breaking-down camping situation, or trying to load some cargo in at night.

The light thrown is decent and integration with the truck body is smooth.

Skid Plates and Underbody Armor

Coolness: High Usefulness: High

The Trailhunter’s skid plate situation appears quite impressive. The underside of the engine is protected by an expansive spread of aluminum that looks like it strikes a nice balance between size and strength. Jack points are easily accessible, and all the vehicle’s important running gear is shielded with at least a little piece of armoring.

These underbody shields will disappear under a layer of road grime and dirt shortly after you start using the truck but they’re hugely valuable. A rock or heavy branch hitting something below your truck the wrong way can really ruin your day. And if you’re thinking you can just cut up and bend some aluminum sheets yourself, well, making custom skid plates that are actually effective and efficient is tougher than you might think. There’s a reason they ain’t cheap!

All that to say—I think the skid plates are a great value-adder to the Trailhunter kit. They’re just part of the standard loadout, not an option.

Tow hooks and jack points all seem easy to find, and the rails that double as steps on the side feel very robust.

Off-Road Trail Pipe

Coolness: Low Usefulness: Medium

While the normal Tacoma exhaust terminates under the left taillight, the Off-Road Trail Pipe option puts the muffler and exhaust output just ahead of the rear axle, underneath the truck’s bed. That makes it better protected from rocks and roots that might bend it out of shape, and it also somewhat minimizes the monoxide you have to suck down while standing behind the truck running the power inverter.

The only disadvantage I could imagine is that the hot, sometimes moist air coming out of an exhaust pipe could ultimately encourage rust right above it. Probably only a third-owner problem, though. Toyota lists this exhaust as a weirdly cheap $75 option.

Air Compressor

Coolness: High Usefulness: Medium

The Trailhunter’s built-in air compressor, like this whole truck in general, is way fancier than it needs to be but pretty cool. Using a digital screen and button interface—which does feel robust enough to live in a truck bed—it’s an easy way to air up or deflate tires accurately. The hose has adapters so you could also inflate lake toys or a raft or anything else that needs air, too.

My little off-road equipment tour video includes real-time deflation and inflation so you can see exactly how long it takes to do a tire, but I was certainly impressed with how high-quality it felt at the control panel. An air compressor is a great thing to have in an adventure rig, and one that’s this cleanly integrated is exceptionally cool.

2,400-Watt Power Inverter

Coolness: Low Usefulness: High

A high-wattage power inverter is a rare option on a car. A decent amount of vehicles can be purchased with a 400-watt inverter and a house-style AC power plug, and that’s enough power to run a camera or laptop or small LED lighting setup. But with over 2,000 watts, you can run a coffee maker, bean grinder, power tools, some cooking equipment, or a decent-sized fridge.

Anything electrical that generates heat (kettle, griddle, coffee machine) uses an immense amount of power, justifying the unit Toyota’s got here. Also in the video you can see that I made some coffee—having an entire pot ready to go for the boys on a backcountry trip would be legendary. I love this feature.

Cameras and Vision Assistance

Coolness: Low Usefulness: Medium

This ain’t your dad’s 22RE-powered Hilux … it’s a land yacht by comparison, and you absolutely will make use of the huge in-dash screen and abundance of cameras while trying to maneuver it. I do appreciate how many viewing options Toyota provides. Not only are there front, back, and 360-degree cameras but there are also various side-view options and sweeping 3D displays that help you see small things that might be near your wheels, like kids or dogs.

I don’t make a habit of letting people or pets hang out by my tires. But if you’re at a campsite with the family, it’s easy to imagine a young critter hiding in a blind spot.

Off-road visibility is claimed as a selling point for this system too, though I still prefer stopping and poking my head out the window rather than watch for rocks on a screen. Depth perception is tough for me to maintain through video. While the front camera is great for climbing steep crests and the back camera is helpful for street parking, I use the 360 views more for making sure the family dogs and nephews are clear of all blind spots than I do for wheeling.

This stuff has been common in high-dollar trucks for years now and I’m still kind of … grumpy about it. Yeah, it’s nice that it can help you park. But you know what would be way cooler? A truck you could see out of without a military grade surveillance system.

Driving the Toyota Tacoma Trailhunter

While it was impossible to go on a multi-day off-road adventure during our time with the Trailhunter, we did quite a few highway trips and rural miles with some light dirt mixed in. In those conditions, where most of us do the majority of our driving anyway, this Tacoma rides remarkably well.

The Old Man Emu suspension floats at a Goldilocks softness that makes general driving feel very comfortable without seeming numb. The Trailhunter dispenses with rear leaf springs that many pickups have for a multi-link setup that, in short, is lot more forgiving when the cargo bed is empty than a lot of older trucks.

All Trailhunters get Toyota’s i-Force Max hybrid powertrain—a 2.4-liter turbocharged four-banger paired with a 1.87-kWh battery and 48-hp electric motor integrated with the transmission. Total output claims are 323 hp and 465 lb-ft of torque, which provide more than adequate acceleration despite the truck tipping scales at around 5,400 pounds. Power comes on very low in the rev range, which does a lot to mask the mass of the truck.

In fact, if you stomp on the gas pedal from a slow roll you get a decent sensation of acceleration. Another big benefit of going hybrid, in theory, is to match good power with acceptable fuel economy. Toyota says this truck should be good for 24 mpg in combined driving. My average was more like high-teens, but I did a lot of idling and throttle-stabbing for photos.

The seats are very comfortable and the interior fit-and-finish on this Trailhunter felt appreciably better than it did in the TRD Off-Road Tacoma I drove earlier in the year. But I think that had more to do with manufacturing discrepancies than actual material choices. The stereo volume knob and passenger seat adjustment switch both fell off in the TRD truck I tested, but the Trailhunter seemed more completely screwed together.

Unfortunately, I don’t think I’ll ever get used to the sports-bar-TV-sized infotainment screen taking up a colossal chunk of my peripheral vision behind the wheel of the current-gen Tacoma. It’s large enough to be a parody of modern vehicle interiors and while you can turn it off, it lights back up if you do something as trivial as adjust the stereo volume by one notch.

Without actually taking it on an overland trip but thoroughly inspecting it in person, I think, yes, it’d be a fun multi-day expedition machine. It looks cool no matter where you park it, which helps make it fun every time you take it out. But as far as being a good buy, it runs into the same problems you’ll get with any high-dollar off-roader: There’s no trail this thing lets you run that you couldn’t do in an old XJ Jeep on great tires and a stash of recovery accessories. Except that, in this, you’d be a lot more comfortable.

The real tragedy is that Toyota’s trotting this out the same year it torpedoed its reliability reputation with major manufacturing issues in its truck engines and transmissions. It’s a difficult thing to reconcile in a review like this. I for sure had fun driving this truck around and playing with its accessories. I think the design is great, and the Trailhunter package is well-executed as an overlander-in-a-box starter pack.

For daily driving, casual adventuring, and making miniature trips enjoyable, the Trailhunter’s a fun truck. It did make some childhood dreams of driving a truck bristling with every conceivable off-road accessory come true. But if I had $65,000 to set up an overland rig for a serious, off-grid, self-rescue-required expedition, I might be more tempted to grab a last-gen Taco with its trustworthy, albiet anemic, V6 and caveman-spec dash screen.

Got some overland expedition insights to share? Email the author at andrew.collins@thedrive.com.