Dodge Dakota vs Toyota Tacoma

When your kids reach a certain age, they won't want to sit at the kids' table at parties. They won't want to order from the kids' menu. And before you know it, they definitely won't want to be called kids anymore.

By the same token, DaimlerChrysler's Dodge Dakota and Toyota Motor's Tacoma pickup--both of which were recently overhauled--are trying to shake off their former images as compact pickups. Both have grown so much in size that we can't call them compacts anymore.

Such is the nature of pickup development: In America--the only pickup market that really matters--we like our trucks to continue to get bigger over time, and more rugged.

Redesigned models of the Dakota and Tacoma went on sale last fall, and both are considerably bigger now. The Dakota is trying to look and feel larger-than-life. It has an optional V-8 engine--a power plant usually reserved for full-size pickups--and its aggressive looks mimic the styling of the full-size, cars-don't-get-any-more-aggressive-looking-than-this Dodge Ram pickup.

If Dodge prepared the new Dakota to look meaner, that makes sense: The Dakota is on its way to a dogfight. While pickups and truck-based automobiles such as sport utility vehicles make up one of the last arenas in which American automakers can and do compete, Japanese automakers have been slowly mounting an attack on the truck market.

The Tacoma and other Toyota trucks offer buyers pickups--the most popular vehicles in America due to their versatility--that come with the same bullet-proof reputation for reliability that consumers have come to know in passenger cars such as the Toyota Camry sedan. Add to this the fact that the entry-level Tacoma is one of the most affordable pickups available, and you can see why the Tacoma is handily outselling the Dakota in this country. In the first quarter of 2005, Toyota sold 34,000 Tacomas in the United States; Dodge sold 25,000 Dakotas.

While Dodge's Dakota tally in the first quarter of this year was an improvement over sales in the first quarter of 2004, Tacoma sales declined 8% compared with the first quarter of 2004. This is unusual. Typically, sales decline in a model's last year and increase after the arrival of the new model.

"There was a considerable ramp-up lag by the time we got all the different models in the pipeline. There are something like 18 different configurations [of the Tacoma]," said a Toyota spokesperson in a recent phone interview. In other words, Toyota is following its usual strategy with the new truck: build the volume slowly and conservatively.

While America's three best-selling vehicles are ordinarily Ford Motor's F-Series, General Motors' Chevrolet Silverado and the Ram--all American pickups--the beating the Dakota is taking at the hands of the Tacoma demonstrates that Wall Street analysts aren't being paranoid or delusional when they say the Japanese are assaulting the truck market. The Japanese are--and American automakers should be terrified. For a closer look at the situation, please follow the link below.

by Dan Lienert