11/14/08

2009 Toyota Venza - Short Take Road Test

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2009 Toyota Venza - Short Take Road Test

During the Toyota Venza press presentation in gorgeous Farmington, Pennsylvania, we listened to Toyota describe the recipe for the perfect modern station wagon: Take one of the country’s most popular sedans—the Camry, natch—add more trunk room for your junk, raise the roof a few inches, and leave everything else where it is. The thing is, Toyota won’t call the Venza a wagon.

Nor, for that matter, does it consider the Venza a crossover, the term every other manufacturer calls its wagons when it's too chicken to call them wagons. To describe the Venza, then, Toyota came up with a yet-undiscovered wagon-avoidance term: “the car, optimized.”

Mix of Highlander and Camry

Eyes rolled around the room. Isn’t “the car, optimized” the very definition of a wagon? Toyota’s feeling is that the Venza is about 70-percent car, 30-percent SUV, but in contrast to most crossovers and sport-utes, the Venza makes no promises of off-road dexterity. (Although, interestingly, the Venza offers the same 8.1 inches of ground clearance as does Toyota’s own Highlander.) It also doesn’t offer a third-row-seat option, so mechanically speaking, what you have here essentially is a “Camry, optimized.”

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