Back in the early nineties the light duty work truck market experienced something it hadn't seen before: Asian competition; sort of. While Japanese manufacturers had done a number on the big three in the small truck market as they had done in various automobile segments, the full size truck market was still red, white, blue, and green$$. Then came the Toyota T-100. While the initial entry into the full size market from Japan didn't have much of an impact on the North American work truck market, it should have been a wake-up call.

Though the T-100 missed the work truck mark in many ways: low gvw, sheet metal like tin foil, puny power trains, low tow rating, and styling best described as a Camry with an 8