Toyota Fortuner

Toyota has not tempered much with the overall layout of the cabin of the new Fortuner as compared to the previous iteration. However, thanks to a different dual tone purple and black upholstery, and inclusion of few additional features, it feels a much better place to be in than before.

The four spoke multi-functional steering wheel with almost squared center boss and a sober looking instrument console with a small rectangular colored MID in between is the same as before. Also left unchanged is the layout of the center console, with a large rectangular touchscreen infotainment system and rectangular panel for the automatic climate control stacked one over the above and in between two vertically laid silver finished pillars.

The dashboard has a curved design at the top, which also houses the central AC vents and a small digital clock in between. As before, the Toyota Fortuner continues to be a spacious place for seven passengers, and gets many comfort and convenience features like push button start with keyless entry, leather upholstery, powered driver’s seat and wireless smartphone charger. However, many modern day features, which are there in the competition, are still missing in the Toyota Fortuner.

The Toyota Fortuner has always been a tough and macho looking SUV, and while this new facelifted version boasts of very mild design enhancements, it still continues to look as tough as ever before.

The bold front look of the Toyota Fortuner now gets an enhanced front grille, which has the same trapezoidal design with horizontal slats in the middle of it, but now looks wider, and gets thicker chrome garnish on its either sides. The chrome garnish extends over the horizontally laid headlamps, which are even sleeker than ever before, and get revised LED projector bulbs.

The daytime running LEDs have moved down to the front bumper, below the large trapezoidal housings for the LED fog lamps. The LTD version of the Toyota Fortuner gets a slightly different front look, with a much smaller and sleeker trapezoidal front grille, different set of LED headlamps, smaller housings for the LED fog lamps and bigger skid plate on the front bumper.

The side profile of the Toyota Fortuner gets a very minute difference over the pre-facelift model, in the form of different set of machined alloy wheels. Rest assured, it continues to get the elevated stance, with a very unique kinked waistline beyond the C-pillar, with very large side windows, sleek roof rails and slightly squared wheel arches with thin side body cladding.

The rear profile of the Toyota Fortuner looks almost unchanged, save for revisions in the LED inserts in the tail lamps, with the sleek chrome bar with bold Fortuner lettering embossed on it still running across between the tail lamps.

This new Toyota Fortuner sees no changes in its mechanical setup as compared to the model it has replaced and continues to get a body on frame chassis with a suspension setup of double wishbone at the front and multi-link at the rear. The ride quality feels firm and bouncy as the speeds rise, and the steering too is slightly on the heavier side.

The standard version of the Toyota Fortuner gets a 2.4-liter four-cylinder diesel engine, which is offered with the choices of a 6-speed manual and a 6-speed automatic gearbox. This engine, available with a rear-wheel-drive as standard, makes 150 PS of power and 400 Nm of torque.

The top-spec Q variant of the standard version as well as both the variants of the LTD version get a 2.8-litre four-cylinder diesel engine mated to a 6-speed automatic gearbox as standard. This engine produces 204 PS of power and 500 Nm of torque, and can also be had with a four-wheel-drive system in the LTD version.

The new Toyota Fortuner gets a revised list of safety features which is better than before, with the most prominent inclusions being the front, side, curtain and knee airbags, ABS with EBD and brake assist, pre-collision system, lane departure warning, adaptive cruise control, vehicle stability control, hill start assist, hill descent control, front and rear parking sensors and a 360-degree parking camera.

The new Toyota Fortuner could have been revised with more prominent design changes and a longer equipment list. However, thankfully, it still has got that magic touch of robustness and reliability it has always been renowned for.