"How are you supposed to look at that while you're driving?" Tom asks. For one thing, the 14.0-inch touchscreen that controls the sound system lacks a volume knob or hard buttons, so scrolling through Sirius stations requires repeatedly jabbing the screen. The worse side of that equation applies to a couple of areas. "These seats are more comfortable than the ones in my truck," Tom says, which surprises me given that the older Tundra's seats look like overstuffed club chairs compared to the 2022 model's slimmer, sportier-looking thrones. The new truck's seats are ventilated as well as heated, and the rear glass still rolls down. The better: Everybody loves a top dead-center stripe on the steering wheel, the red dash is confidently outrageous and the giant retro TOYOTA badge on the passenger side is a fun shoutout to the company's 4x4 heritage. The new Tundra is certainly more extroverted and modern, for better or worse. Now let's take a look at some other important categories and see whether Toyota moved the ball forward or made like the New England Patriots at the end of that December Colts game. I thus award two points to Old Tundra, which is off to an early lead in the arbitrary scorekeeping that I will not actually keep track of. When Tom puts his water bottle in the 2022 Tundra, the shape of the door panel forces it to angle out. And the first thing we ascertain is that Banner has better water bottle holders in the front doors compared to its newer counterpart. Tom's truck appears in the app as "Banner," as in Bruce Banner, as in a large green guy more commonly known as the Hulk. Tom walks up and unlocks his truck with his phone, which admittedly surprises me-I didn't know the old Tundra could do that, but it's compatible with Toyota's Connected Services app. Would all of this be welcomed by Tundra customers, or would some of it be off-putting? To find out, I drove over to my friend Tom's house and pulled up next to his truck: a Lunar Rock 2021 Tundra TRD Pro. And that's not to mention the new interior and exterior styling, which in the TRD Pro includes camo-patterned red synthetic leather upholstery and black camo fender flares. The transmission went from a six-speed to a 10-speed, and the leaf-sprung rear end gave way to coil springs. In the case of the TRD Pro, a naturally aspirated 5.7-liter V-8 was replaced by a twin-turbo V-6 and a hybrid system. But the Toyota Tundra's 2022 redesign was more extreme than most, given that the previous generation remained mostly unchanged throughout its 14-year run. Typically, pickup-truck redesigns are methodical evolutions of whatever came before-a little more power, a little different styling, maybe some clever new features.
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