There’s a workout regimen called Crossfit that aims to increase one’s abilities in eight different areas. Crossfit doesn’t reward the specialist, it rewards the well-rounded; it doesn’t create marathoners, it creates decathletes. The point of Crossfit is to allow you to enter any situation with the confidence that you have things like the agility, strength and conditioning to do well. The Toyota Venza has the same ethos: pitched as 70-percent car, 30-percent SUV, the Venza wants to do everything well. And when we say “well”, we mean it wants to do everything better than the competition: 10,000 people were leaving Toyota every year to get into something between the Camry and the Highlander, things that ended up being the Ford Edge, Mazda CX-7 and Infiniti FX. The Venza is Toyota’s request to those buyers to “Come back to papa. ” Follow the jump to find out whether you should heed the call.
Toyota calls the Venza “the car, optimized. ” What occurred to us when we saw it in person is “jacked-up wagon. ” We won’t christen it a JUW because we really don’t need any more acronyms for a crossover. Still, that’s what we think.
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In Toyota-speak, the design language is called “Vibrant Clarity”. (On a side note, we were told the new Prius and the Venza are the two cars leading the Vibrant Clarity charge. ) We don’t know exactly what that means, but for us and the Venza, it represents a fair bit of subtle dimension given to the body, and much of it actually works. Up front, there are two short swage lines emanating from the Toyota badge in the hood that you’re unlikely to notice until you’re standing over them and can see their effect on a reflection. Out back, the rear-quarter area is a herd of lines and angles. The busyness of it, compared to the rest of the car, signals “We’ve got things going on back here, ” but it’s never raucous, comes together well, and nicely breaks up what might otherwise be a sensation of pure girth.
We’re still not the biggest fans of Toyota’s I’m-coming-out-at-ya! light design, either front or rear. But in a sign of the brand’s commitment to staying true to the concept, the arc of the taillights is called a “hand-drawn line, ” and it took the engineers a few steaming sessions to figure out how to manufacture it without costing a fortune.
Yet for all of the Zesty Lucidity on the outside, the interior and the driving experience are where the story is. Let us, though, first spare a moment for the story of the Venza’s name: it is a combination of the word “venture, ” indicative of the relentlessly seeking habits of the car’s intended buyer, and “Monza, ” the Formula 1 circuit in Italy, indicative of the car’s sporting inclinations. We have no further comment, ladies and gentlemen of the jury. It is for you to decide how it shall be judged.
To the interior: the Venza is something like the iPhone and AppStore of CUVs; whatever you want to do, short of stow a side of beef in a walk-in fridge, it’s probably in there. The Venza is a little longer (189 inches) and higher (63.4 inches) than a Camry, while slightly lower and shorter than a Highlander. Its platform has three sources: the front is Highlander, the middle is Camry and the rear is Venza-specific.
A car-like entry feeling is created by lower rocker panels that are almost even with the interior floor, and narrow door sills. Interior roominess – especially in the plenty-of-room rear – is created by having concave door panels that arc away from passengers. The sightline is higher than a Camry’s, but the rear load-in height is lower.
There are four Big Gulp-sized cupholders and six bottle holders in the car. The center tunnel console area offers a ludicrous number of different positions, and the caverns inside appear to go all the way to the ground. The wire-concealment setup for the auxiliary cable means you can hide the iPod and the cable even while it’s hooked up. The high beams detect oncoming vehicles via a sensor in the rearview mirror and automatically switch to low-beam. You can lock and unlock all four doors and the rear hatch by placing your finger on two hash marks on either front door handle. A panoramic roof with power tilt/slide function and a separate fixed glass panel over the rear seats fills the car with all the Let There Be Light you could wish for. The information display on the dash, above the center console, can be customized to adjust the font size and content. The rear seats are 1-touch fold-down, and there’s a remote rear seat fold-down latch just in front of the rear hatch. There are also three 12-volt outlets. The navigation voice instructions are available in Spanish, French or English. The seating options are a nice cloth, and a pinstriped leather that, frankly, is above the car’s pay grade. And finally finally finally: power windows have an auto up/down function for all four doors. And if you get the tow package, you can pull 3,500 lbs. behind you. If it isn’t in there, you really might want to think about whether you need it.
Under the hood is a new 2.7-liter 4-cylinder that drops 182 hp at 5,800 rpm and 182 lb-ft of torque at 4,200 rpm. Those might seem like high rpm numbers, but there is plenty of power to handle everyday situations lower down in the rev range, and even when the 4-cylinder has to grab its hammer and go to work, it works quietly. The optional 3.5-liter V6 gets 268 hp at 6,200 rpm and 246 lb-ft at 4,700 rpm. Both of them send their efforts to either the front wheels or all wheels through a 6-speed, sequential-shift, electronically-controlled automatic transmission.
The engines have dispensed with the “good” option and stuck with “better” and “best. ” The ULEV-II, Tier 2, SULEV-II, California-rated PZEV 4-cylinder pulls the truck up no-laughing-matter grades, even at highway speeds, and does not roar at you about the effort. It will kick down as it needs through any of its six gears, and will keep you on your appointed rounds at your appointed speeds. According to Toyota, if you don’t spend all of your time scaling Matterhorn grades, you’ll return 20/28 mpg in the AWD version. It’s a meaty lump.
Of course, there were reminders of the Venza’s SUV id beneath the station wagon’s ego – or, the Hulk lying within the smaller Bruce Banner – and they came at three interludes: any time you’re around an actual car, any time you looked in the rear view mirror, and any time you had to suddenly brake. The first are simple: have a look at those folks down there at normal height, and you remember you’re in a Venza; have a look at all that empty space behind you, and you remember you’re in a Venza.
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