New Fortuner is a dramatic upgrade but remains sensible SUV

Well, Tamatoa hasn’t always been this glam

I was a drab little crab once

But now I can be happy as a clam

Because I’m beautiful, baby

- Jermaine Clement, Shiny

Toyota has a middling seven-seat, off-road SUV that is not a Prado, and its first iteration has repeatedly been the hapless recipient of some ruthless, brutal filleting from this unforgiving hack.

Some called my words a hatchet job (why?) while others levelled accusations of brand elitism (again, why?) but at the end of the day, the original Fortuner was what it was: ungainly on the outside, ugly on the inside, noisy, thirsty, uncomfortable, inspiring absolutely zero desire to get in and drive and hard to qualify as a sensible purchase, unless you were running a parastatal and did not want your underlings abusing the cost-free and responsibility-free vehicles that come with being a government-run company, hence saddling them upon such an unlikely horse.

And that is where a lot of these Fortuners landed when new, anyway; as the unwitting bearers of blue-and-white number plates, acting as motorised civil servants  while the competition found comfortable, pampered homes in the hands of the loving and caring but highly discriminating private sector.

Well, there is a new Fortuner, and boy does it put things in perspective. This is the point where I don my I-told-you-so hat, which I did late last year when I first came across this vehicle in the metal.

The brand new Toyota Fortuner is so vastly removed from, and far much better than its immediate predecessor, that it immediately qualified as a Car of The Year candidate in my accolade roster for 2017, which is quite telling, considering the things I have said about its precursor. The new Fortuner did not win my award, but that does not make it any less impressive overall. Yes, the Fortuner was a drab little crab once, but now it’s beautiful, baby... both on the inside and the outside.

What is it?

A dramatic improvement, that’s what. The changes here are more revolutionary than evolutionary because you will be hard- pressed to establish a connection between this fine piece of shiny metal and its woefully underwhelming antecedent.  However revolutionary the transformation might be, the new Fortuner eschews blatant revolution and still adapts to the regulations of play from Toyota’s rulebook that dictate its SUVs be more conservatively sensible and realistic than act as ground-breaking design studies intended to “disrupt” segments and introduce things we never knew we needed in a car. The Fortuner is as grounded as the minds at the UN that decided Landcruisers will always serve as workhorses for their field agents whose hardship allowances could fund entire parastatals.

More scientifically, The Fortuner is a seven-seat SUV from Toyota, undercutting the Landcruiser Prado in size and price and running just sideways and slightly below the Surf, which is not sold here. It comes with selectable 4WD, and with this new model, additional gubbins like hill descent assist and traction/stability control. My car had automatic headlamps as well, that went on and off by themselves depending on ambient lighting. Nifty detail, that one.

Exterior: 88 per cent

It’s so shiny, it dazzles like a wealthy woman’s neck. I’m not just quoting lyrics from a cartoon musical; the car really does gleam and glint like treasure from a sunken pirate’s wreck. This comes down to two things: the amount of brightwork festooned upon its visage, and the brown metal-flake paint. You need to see this paint in bright sunlight to fully grasp its awesomeness; it looks so good, one would be forgiven for thinking it is one of those costly aftermarket spray jobs created specifically for display at parking lot motor shows.

The dimensions are not entirely dissimilar to the preceding model, what with the high ride height, massive wheel gaps and short overhangs, but at least this new car does not look awkward. The design language is modern and thoughtful, chrome lashings notwithstanding, but the LX-lite rear façade could do with a bit of individualism.

Interior: 91 per cent

Things get even better once you clamber aboard. Material quality is top-notch, the colour coordination is tastefully excellent (only if you go for the black versus dark brown combination my car had), button layout and design is intelligent, and some of the touches are actually quite clever.

The seats are not leather, but they do have removable leather covers that will take a keen eye to notice their detachability. This makes cleaning, repair and/or replacement a brief and easy affair while retaining the upper crust ambience of the cabin. It feels like a Lexus in here, but without all the unnecessary toys that accompany that badge.

Leg room front and middle is sufficient for most human frames, but I’ll admit I never got to try the third row, the one way back in the boot. That is usually a bone of contention in most non-van seven-seaters, and I suspect it will fit only sixtieth percentile profile individuals.

The power windows are all one-touch - all four of them – a very convenient feature. Driver’s seat height is high enough to lord it over other road users and creates a commanding view, accentuated by the massive side mirrors that somehow do not create blind spots, nor do the A pillars. I have been in cars where the A pillars, C pillars and side mirrors create such huge blind spots that the vehicle needs a suite of sensors to let you know there are objects near you, because you can’t see them.

Speaking of blind spots, there were none. The only blind spot lies directly below the rear windscreen, and this becomes immediately visible once the reversing camera comes on automatically as you start to back the car up.

Ride and Handling: 75 per cent

The ride is good. It is not jarring and it will isolate all but the worst of bumps and potholes from the occupants’ glutius nerves. It is also not bouncy, a common failing of vehicles of this class and cause for alarm when the ground underfoot starts to undulate. However, there is body roll on corners of all severities, and the car will lean noticeably any time you are not going dead straight.

The swaying is not as serious as it is in the bigger Prado, but it is still sufficient to require the driver to dial back the throttle openings a little and be a bit more circumspect in his helmsmanship.

Dive and squat will be felt as well, under braking and acceleration respectively; but these mostly make themselves felt when equivalently large movements are made on the respective pedals. Overall, the vehicle rides convincingly well, even for those used to overdeveloped Euro-cars.

Brakes: 85 per cent

Well, they’re good and not so good. They’re good in that they lack the mousetrap on-or-off action of many new cars with electronically-enhanced affairs, and they work very well, especially in dramatically urgent stops.

But they’re not so good because you will find yourself making these stops a little too frequently for your liking as you gradually acclimatise to the fact that your Subaru Legacy GT does not carry much weight and so requires little effort to stop, unlike this huge, low-mileage bauble that robbed my neighbours of precious parking space the previous weekend.

My own car has what I call a “nervous” setup; even lightly breathing on the pedals will create an immediate and instantaneous effect (that includes the clutch). This means it requires a fine and restrained touch to not look incompetent as you drive along.

The Fortuner, on the other hand, requires positive force on the brake pedal to even begin slowing down, let alone stop. But once you get on it, you will shed speed like a hatchback. The learning curve on that one was a little steep, but hey, I wouldn’t manage this column if I wasn’t one to quickly adapt to a car’s innate characteristics, would I?

Any downsides?

Would you believe it, but I found none. For the first time ever, there are no major gripes to be made against a car. Does that mean that Toyota has finally given us the perfect vehicle? No, because no such things exists.

Any shortcomings to be made are immediately justifiable, either for engineering reasons or by cost management. The car rolls quite a lot on corners, but then again this is a body-on-frame SUV with a lofty ride height and plenty of stroke room in the suspension to maximise wheel articulation, so what do you expect? Mk  IV Supra levels of stability?

The brakes, while effective, can give one heart flutters as one forgets just how much momentum one is carrying and applies them insufficiently, only to panic at the last minute and immediately drop anchor. This can be blamed on the massive wheels — necessary for flattening bumps, filling in potholes and crossing fault lines in the ground — and they carry a lot of rotational inertia and unsprung weight. which in turn deadens tactile feedback via steering and pedals.

This is not good for anybody driving behind you, as someone found out first- hand one rainy night in Rongai when they were tailgating me and were in turn rear-ended in a multiple vehicle pile-up after they had to stop on a dime after realising they were about to drive under my rear axle right when I did my impromptu brake test. Sorry, dudes; but tailgating is a foolish move, your loss. Next time, keep your distance.

No sunroof? Call it cost-control, though a sunroof would be a nice addendum on such a vehicle. Outdated infotainment screen? Well, it worked well enough for me and the home screen graphic showing a bar graph representation of your driving statistics (average speed versus fuel consumption) is a neat and handy little feature to kill boredom with if you have no tunes bumping on the stereo. Too much stuff in the infotainment is a pointless and sometimes dangerous distraction.

Actually I do have a complaint, and that is the keyless-go feature (push to start). The vehicle is either fully off (key out) or fully on, with the engine running; there is nothing between the two extremes. Most keyless go features work like this: to put the car on without starting it (equivalent of the “ACC” or “on positions in key-based systems”), tap the start button once.

To crank the engine, hold the start button for a second or two. To turn it off from either position, tap the start button again.

Not with the Fortuner. Tap the start button once and the engine cranks (you have to have your foot on the brake pedal or else nothing happens except some unnecessarily harsh warnings flashing in the cluster asking where your foot is). Tap the button again and you get complete systems shutdown. So let’s say you come to a stop, kill the engine, step out and realise you left a window open.

With the vehicle off, so are all systems. Tap the button once to access electrical accessories (seeking the “ACC” or  “on” position equivalent in keyed systems), and the engine comes to life, unnecessarily. Why? Engine on, engine off, engine back on again just to roll up the windows then engine off again to now finalise proceedings... hmmm.

Sounds fussy and quite unnecessary. Small oversight, Toyota.* Alternatively, one could buy a Fortuner with a conventional key-based ignition.

(*Unless there is something I am missing in which case feel free to enlighten me when I ask for the car again, because I will ask for the car again)

Summary

I’m too shiny

Watch me dazzle like a diamond in the rough

Strut my stuff

My stuff is so shiny; send your armies but they’ll never be enough

My shell’s too tough

Bedecked in jewellery as the new Fortuner is, it still maintains its utility roots. Besides the traction control and hill descent assist, it is wonderfully devoid of all that newfangled electronic whizzbangery that does half the driving for you as is becoming common nowadays, but it is no less capable for it.

I recently had a heated debate with my peers in auto journalism, during which one of my own employees battled the rest of us over whether or not technology in a car is necessary (not always) or pointless (definitely not); and the agreement was some tech might be necessary (safety and emissions) while some is pointless (the fable of the illuminated cup-holder). Others are merely convenient. The Fortuner is chock full of convenient tech.

It does not have pre-programmed settings for the type of surface you are stomping on like a modern Land Rover; you still have to select 4WD and lock the diff yourself. However, this has been made a lot easier with the use of a rotary dial in the centre console to apportion torque between one axle or two and a button for the locker.

The big question: would one buy one? The answer is yes. Much as I tried to avoid bringing up its Prado stablemate, it is inevitable.

The price difference is close to Sh6 million, with the Fortuner retailing at about 7.5 on the road fully specced and the Prado going north of 13 for the same courtesy. Logic dictates that you shell out less for the smaller vehicle with the glowy dress and nicer interior, and you’d not be wrong.

The Fortuner’s price tag places it squarely among premium crossover pretenders: things like the BMW X3, VW Tiguan and Jaguar E Pace; and while the Fortuner might not have all the gizmo-trickery that these little vehicles flaunt (like mood lighting and rear hatches that open themselves in response to elaborate dance moves performed near the fuel filler cap), it has 400% more talent and 200% more practicality while sacrificing none of the class and comfort.

It actually resides a rank above the listed crossovers. 7.5 million looks like a lot of money, and it is; but look at the price tags of brand new vehicles today and tell me this is not a comparative bargain.

(Word limits demand I stop here. Next week we look at the spec sheet, the GD engine, the numbers, and that time I took the Fortuner off the showroom floor and straight into an off-road challenge, among other things)

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