This Is the Upcoming 3-Row Toyota Grand Highlander’s Bigger Rear End
Sporting three rows of seats and the company’s Hybrid Max powertrain, the Toyota Grand Highlander will be unveiled Feb. 8.
Anyone who follows automotive trademark filings will have seen this coming, but Toyota has confirmed the existence of a bigger version of its three-row crossover called the Grand Highlander. The company legally called dibs on the name last August. It's even released a very dark teaser shot of the rear end before the vehicle is fully revealed at the Chicago Auto Show in February.
A little surprisingly, the Grand Highlander's stern looks to be quite a bit different from the back of the regular Highlander. First off, the taillights are less squinty, sporting parallel LED signatures while the bottom of the liftgate itself looks a bit more sculpted. "Grand Highlander" badging now lives big and proud on the center license "mustache" instead of down and off to the side.
Here, take a look at it alongside a similar angle of the regular Highlander.
Look closely and you'll spot a "Hybrid Max" badge, which tells us that the new 'Yota SUV will rock the same performance-oriented hybrid system as the new Crown sedan. In that car, it's a 2.4-liter turbo-four paired to an electric motor for a total system output of 340 horsepower and 400 lb-ft of torque.
The only other technical detail Toyota has confirmed is that the Grand Highlander will indeed be a three-row—unsurprising since the regular-length Highlander already comes with three rows. In any case, the Toyota Grand Highlander will be unveiled on Feb. 8 and likely be on display at the Chicago Auto Show.
For 2023, Toyota gave the regular Highlander a new turbocharged engine that's definitely made it more efficient but, as Weekend Editor Nico DeMattia found in our First Drive, a little less refined. Hopefully the Hybrid Max powertrain—along with those presumably bigger quarters—will make the Grand Highlander the Highlander to have.
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