Toyota's Tacozilla SEMA concept is a Tacoma camper with retro style
The Tacozilla calls back to Toyota campers of the 1970s and '80s.
Hell yeah.
I'm not much of an outdoors kind of guy. I didn't even make it a year into Boy Scouts before quitting, I never owned any real winter gear in my five years of living in Michigan, and the most "hiking" I will tolerate is a walk up the hilly sidewalks in West Hollywood. But even I can admit that Toyota's Tacozilla concept truck is one of the coolest builds at SEMA this year.
Based on a Tacoma TRD Sport pickup, the Tacozilla is a rad camper that harks back to Toyota's factory campers of the 1970s and '80s, specifically the Chinook models. It was built by the Toyota Motorsports Garage team with help from Complete Customs in McKinney, Texas. The centerpiece is the camper top, which is completely custom and extends below the frame height so people can comfortably stand up in the whole interior. In order to create a pass-through to the truck's cabin, the team had to add some serious bracing that will handle off-road driving. The aluminum camper has rounded edges and a tapered shape, and the cool rear door took 100 hours of designing alone. Toyota's goal was to make the camper look fully integrated as a part of the Tacoma instead of being a tack-on box, and the design is successful.
There's a full kitchen and bathroom.
Complementing the camper's design is an incredible paint job consisting of a white main body with awesome bronze, orange and yellow stripes. The Tacozilla also has bronze 17-inch wheels with all-terrain tires, a lifted TRD suspension kit, an integrated winch in the front bumper, a snorkel and a huge light bar. It's powered by a mostly stock 3.5-liter V6 and manual transmission, though Toyota added a second battery and a custom exhaust system.
Toyota wanted the interior to look like a "micro-house" with a rustic look, so it has sauna-inspired teak floors, wood cabinets and a pop-up skylight. The dining table is 3D printed and can convert into a "backlit piece of wall art," and the Tacozilla has a full kitchen and bathroom with a hot-water shower. There's also a TV and lots of sleeping room and storage space. The camper is fully insulated, too.
While Toyota has no plans to build and produce the Tacozilla for sale to regular people, I think there could be a huge market for the rig if it did. The overlanding craze is still growing fast, and Toyota's long history of making campers based on its compact pickups give it some real credibility. The Tacozilla will be on display at Toyota's booth during SEMA, which starts on Nov. 2.
