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A number of Maui residents have reported seeing the very rare Tacundra, a Toyota truck model that the Japanese automaker would like to manufacture on-island to save the cost of shipping so many trucks for Valley Isle drivers.
For a couple of years now Toyota has worked to establish a new car manufacturing plant on Maui, because so many of their truck models sell to islanders. The company’s leadership wants to cut the costs of all the cargo ships needed to trucks here from Japan.
“Our profit-and-loss numbers from the past decade indicate that we have to ship waaay too many Tacomas and Tundras to Maui,” said Asahi Warau, director of Pacific Island Sales for Toyota. “We said it before: we’ve never seen anything like this. It seems like every single adult male on Maui must have purchased a Tacoma or Tundra the past 5 years. We are not making this up.”
The company had looked into purchasing the old Puuenene Mill for a new manufacturing plant, specifically to make its new Toyota truck model for Maui, and also develop a big tourist attraction around the plant themed on the popular Toyota pickups.
However, Toyota officials were unaware that the mill has a museum open to the public, and the property is zoned Untouchable AG/OS by the County of Maui, a special category that basically means don’t even think about building something there.
So the company's search for a feasible site continues.
In the meantime, a rumor is floating around: that the company has manufactured some Tacundra prototypes, and secretly imported them to Maui where they allow only Toyota employees, representatives, or contractors to test drive them.
The past month, alert Maui Insight readers have sent emails and digital images of what they believe is the new Tacundra model on Maui roadways.
“I know what a Tacoma and what a Tundra looks like, and this was definitely not those models,” said Tranna Tan of Wailuku, who snapped a photo of a suspected Tacundra driving past Kahului Harbor earlier this week. “It was something unlike the others. It was like a ‘tweener.”
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In 2021, the top Japanese Automaker announced its hopes to build a “Tacundra Village” around the highly visible historic sugar mill in Puunene, to not only manufacture the new model, but also to develop a sort of “All Things Tacoma and Tundra” theme park over time.
Long assumed to be Maui’s “unofficial truck,” the Tacoma has endured solid sales here since it was launched in the mid-1990s. It was followed by the introduction of the larger, more powerful Tundra by the end of that decade.
Ever since, those Toyota pickup models can be found everywhere on Maui, from the Hana Highway to Kihei Drive, from Napili to the sides of various rural roads around the island. For some reason, Toyota trucks don't seem to get burned up and abandoned on the sides of roads like other models around the island.
The new Tacundra will be a hybrid between the established models in terms of physical size and engine strength.
Toyota had hoped for the new model’s introduction on Maui only in 2022, but the plant location search delayed plans.
All along, Toyota planned to roll out the Tacundra on Maui, as its test run for 6 months or a year, before further unveiling the model to other states and nations.
“Nobody knows more about Toyota trucks than the thousands upon thousands of people who own them on Maui,” Warau said. “We’re anxious to see how they modify the new Tacundra, by lifting it to seriously ridiculous heights, or lowering it down too low so it can’t make it over OGG speed bumps, or putting goofy stickers all over. We can learn for future updates.”
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Toyota already is designing additions to the second line of Tacundras, targeted for release in 2025, to attract even more Maui buyers. These additions might include built-in fishing pole holders on the corners of bumpers, and a small picnic table-like fold-out off the tailgate to promote talk-story sessions behind parked Tacundras.
