Toyota RAV4

Back where the 'soft-roader' trend started

- Matt Robinson

SUVS now account for more than half of all new-car registrations in Europe. That should hardly come as a shock - simply look out your window, and you can be fairly sure the next vehicle to drive past has a bit of extra ride height going on, and quite possibly some plastic cladding around the wheelarches.

As for how this has happened, you might point the finger at the Qashqai (see Icon Drives # 11, issue 1,775) - a car that blew away even Nissan's own sales projections, spawned countless imitators and put us on track for the SUV-filled roads of today. But while the Qashqai undoubtedly popularised the idea of a 'soft-roader', such cars had already been kicking around for some time. And the first of them was the Toyota RAV4.

To understand what the RAV did so differently, you merely have to look at the options of the time if you did want a high-riding vehicle. It often meant buying a 'proper' 4x4 with body-on-frame construction - a Land Rover Discovery, perhaps, or maybe a Nissan Patrol. Big, heavy cars such as these were expensive to purchase and run, and while being great off road, they weren't that brilliant on it.

Shaking up proceedings significantly in 1994 was Toyota with its RAV4, or "Recreational Active Vehicle with four-wheel drive". It was built not around an old-fashioned ladder chassis, but a new monocoque structure derived from that of the Corolla and Carina family cars. The travel of the fully independent suspension was deliberately made much shorter, but longer than the average hatchback's.

Generous 

Ground clearance was made to be generous but not excessive, and there was a permanent four-wheel-drive system and a locking differential, despite a lack of low-range transmission. The focus for the RAV4 was very much the road, but its maker always had one eye on the off piste, just in case any customers wanted to tackle slightly rougher routes.