© Copyright 2024 - All Rights Reserved - SK Car Lounge Pvt. Ltd.
Designed & Developed by www.aivah.com
Designed & Developed by www.aivah.com
The 2017 Toyota Fortuner has evolved in leaps and bounds over the outgoing generation car Last decade, the full-size SUV segment was very popular, there were a multitude of options in the segment and every manufacturer who had presence in this space was enjoying decent sales. And then Toyota decided to launch the Fortuner, overnight sales of all other SUVs came tumbling down as Toyota sold more Fortuners than all other options in…
The 2017 Toyota Fortuner has evolved in leaps and bounds over the outgoing generation car Last decade, the full-size SUV segment was very popular, there were a multitude of options in the segment and every manufacturer who had presence in this space was enjoying decent sales. And then Toyota decided to launch the Fortuner, overnight sales of all other SUVs came tumbling down as Toyota sold more Fortuners than all other options in the segment combined.
That’s how popular the Toyota Fortuner has been, averaging around 1000 unit sales a month which is a big feat considering the price of the vehicle. After 7 years of being on sale, Toyota has now launched the second generation Fortuner in India and it seems to have won half its battle with the design itself, or has it?
Motor Quest: Toyota launched the Toyota Fortuner in India in 2009 after generating a lot of anticipation and it was an instant hit. Waiting period for the car was long in its initial months and people were even ready to pay a slight premium to get quick delivery of their vehicles.
Toyota’s latest design direction is changing towards a more sleeker and athletic appearance to cut the visual bulk as seen on the Innova Crysta. Same is the case with the new Toyota Fortuner. It comes with sleek new wraparound headlights, huge chrome grille and a heavily sculpted bumper with integrated foglamps. The side profile reveals its clean and tall design. There are new shiny set of alloy wheels that add some premium touch and beyond the C-pillar, it looks quite sharp with the slight kink, extended tail light and a floating roof appearance.
The LED wraparound tail lights look very neat, there is a protruding roof spoiler as well and a dash of chrome that doesn’t look overdone. The new generation Toyota Fortuner is longer and wider than the previous model but the wheelbase is exactly the same while the height is also a tad shorter. All in all, the new styling looks very appealing and the presence on the road of the new Toyota Fortuner is grand.
Get inside the cabin and the design flow of the new Toyota Fortuner‘s dashboard will remind you of the Innova Crysta to some extent. The cabin feels rich and premium than before in terms of quality and finish and also the attention to detail. The new steering wheel feels good to hold having a matte silver lower half. The instrument cluster is big and easy to read which also has a sizeable MID display that shows all the necessary info about the car and also information from the media system. The top half of the dashboard gets AC vents and the centre console is uniquely highlighted with silver accents along with a dash of leatherette upholstery with double stitching that gives you a premium car feel.
The infotainment system consists of a big 7.0-inch touch-screen display with USB, AUX, DVD, MP3 and Bluetooth connectivity for music streaming and telephony. It comes with a 6-speaker audio system that offers decent aural experience. Sadly there is no Apple CarPlay and Android Auto connectivity, which is the trending car tech on offer these days. The new Toyota Fortuner comes with Navigation, which is user friendly and the screen also doubles up as a display for the reverse camera with parking guidelines (not adaptive). Unlike the new Ford Endeavour, the Toyota Fortuner doesn’t come with the fancy auto park assist.
The 2017 Toyota Fortuner is offered with an 8-way electrically adjustable driver’s seat that offers good visibility and is suitable for both tall and short passengers. It also comes with power foldable and adjustable ORVMs, keyless entry (the smart key looks very fancy) and go with push button start/stop, cruise control, auto headlamps, powered tail gate and a ton of new features which you haven’t seen on the previous generation model. However, it misses out on dual-zone climate control system, sunroof and electrically folding third row seats, all of these are available in the American SUV.
The new gen Toyota Fortuner gets a dark brown upholstery, which looks almost black in dark conditions. It makes the cabin feel rich and the seats offer tremendous support for the back and under-thighs. The second row has ample space with good legroom, kneeroom and shoulder room but under-thigh support is lacking and seating three people abreast isn’t a good idea. The third row is a tight fit for adult passengers specially compared to the more spacious Innova Crysta’s third row seating, as one sits low down with the knees close to the chest and poor under-thigh support.
Toyota is offering the Toyota Fortuner with both diesel and petrol engine options, the latter catering to a meagre set of buyers as less than 5% sales will come from the gasoline model. We drove the petrol model first which is offered with both 5-speed manual and 6-speed automatic gearbox options. Our test car was the automatic. The petrol powered Toyota Fortuner is only offered in 2WD guise but it still weighs close to 300 kgs more than the Innova Crysta with which it shares the 2.7-litre petrol engine, generating identical power and torque numbers.