The Toyota RAV4 Used To Be Way Weirder Than You Remember

It still feels a bit weird to write, but the obvious choice for someone who just wants a new car is a Toyota RAV4. It’s not just America’s most popular crossover, it’s America’s best-selling vehicle that isn’t a line of pickup trucks. There’s a good reason why compact crossovers are everywhere, and that’s because they’re a great mix of size, practicality and efficiency. However, while all modern compact crossovers are now five-door liftbacks, that wasn’t always the case. Even the RAV4 itself has quirky history.

Let’s flash back to 1994, when the landscape of tall vehicles that could send torque to all four wheels was vastly different than what we’re used to today. Machines as small as the Geo Tracker and as large as the Chevrolet Suburban often featured body-on-frame construction, two-speed transfer cases, and solid axles. While some manufacturers like Jeep had success with unibody construction, vehicles like the Cherokee and Grand Cherokee were decidedly SUVs, and the idea of taking passenger car components and packaging them in an SUV-like form was far from a mainstream concept.

However, that’s exactly what Toyota did with the original RAV4. It took the transmission from the Celica GT-Four rally homologation special and platform components from the Corolla and Carina compact cars, and bundled them up in a package with independent suspension, an available limited-slip rear differential, and the typical small sport-ute body styles of the 1990s. While the five-door model is closest to the crossovers we’re used to now, the original RAV4 was also available as a three-door model with either a hard roof or a soft top.

Keep in mind, the RAV4 was released a year before the Honda CR-V, so it launched without immediate direct competition. That was enough to render Toyota’s small ute a revelation, because thanks to a little bit of performance car DNA, nothing else on the market was quite like it. Even once other compact crossovers appeared on the scene, the RAV4 was the athlete of the bunch, as Car And Driver wrote in a 1998 comparison test.

The RAV4’s steering is sensitive and direct, as are the brakes. There’s some roll, dive, and squat, but it never seems out of proportion. With an optional larger tire-and-wheel package ($1140), our RAV4 led the class in cor­nering grip at 0.72 g, and it took second place in braking, stopping from 70 mph in 193 feet (without anti-lock control). The Toyota was the quickest through the emer­gency lane change at 57.9 mph, doing so with the balanced controllability of a sports coupe. Had we not been sitting up so high, we might have thought we were driving a Celica.

That last line is still the appeal of modern crossovers, car-like handling in an SUV-like form. Toyota hit upon gold, but it still kept the best for its home market. While American RAV4s featured a 120-horsepower two-liter 3S-FE four-cylinder engine, 1998-onward JDM models were available with the grey top BEAMS 3S-GE two-liter four-cylinder engine pumping out 178 horsepower at 6,600 RPM. Now that’s something that would be cool to import. Oh, and it’s also worth mentioning the RAV4 EV, an early North American-market compliance electric vehicle with a modest 85 mph top speed that was actually sold to members of the public rather than merely leased.

At this point, it was clear that Toyota found success in the RAV4 formula, so for the second-generation model, it took an evolutionary approach with more mature styling, more power, more amenities, and more weight. At the same time, the three-door model disappeared from U.S. showrooms, but that didn’t mean Toyota gave up on it.

Nope, the rest of the world got a three-door second-generation RAV4 and it kept lots of the first-generation three-door goodness. Sure, the hot BEAMS engine was no longer on the option list, but you could get it as a diesel, or with a selection of four-cylinder gasoline engines making up to 160 horsepower. You could still lock the center diff and row your own gears, and the form factor was still cute with a wheelbase of less than 90 inches. With early two-door second-generation RAV4s now eligible for importation to America, don’t be surprised if these thing start showing up in your local JDM scene.

While the third-generation RAV4 lost the option of a three-door body style, it didn’t entirely lose its weirdness. At the time of its launch in late 2005, virtually all compact crossovers had ditched side-hinged cargo doors for liftgates, but not the RAV4. It was the last mainstream model in its segment to feature a spare tire bolted to the back, but the weirder option involved deleting the spare tire and centering the licence plate to offer the look of a liftgate with the slight impracticality of a side-hinged door.

That’s strange, but not nearly as strange as Toyota building two different RAV4 variants depending on the market. In North America, Toyota saw a demand for occasional use third-row seats, so it stretched the wheelbase of its compact crossover by nearly four inches. Oh, and then it dropped in the 3.5-liter V6 from an Avalon to create one of the quickest Toyotas of the 2000s, the RAV4 V6. We’ve already done a deep dive on the six-cylinder model, but it was an absolute scorcher. We’re talking zero-to-60 mph in 6.3 seconds during Car And Driver instrumented testing, just a single tenth behind a naturally aspirated fourth-generation Supra.

The RAV4 V6 wasn’t just one of the quickest Toyotas of its day, it was also quicker than its electric counterpart. In 2010, Toyota revealed a prototype RAV4 EV that would then be developed into the 2012 RAV4 EV. With engineering assistance and components from Tesla, the result was a far more usable vehicle than the original RAV4 EV thanks to an output of 154 horsepower and a range of 113 miles. Oh how far we’ve come since then.

It took nearly a decade for the RAV4 to lose its weirdness, but that’s effectively what finally happened with the fourth-generation model, which entered production in late 2012 for the 2013 model year. The swing-out rear door, rear-mounted spare tire, and available V6 were gone, and the result was sales record after sales record. Still, the RAV4 stands as proof that even the most popular, orthodox cars on the road can still have interesting history, although I’m holding out a little hope that the sixth-generation model being revealed later today adds a tiny hint of weirdness back.

Top graphic credit: Toyota

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