The Smooth Prime Is The Greatest Toyota RAV4 Of All Time

The present Toyota RAV4 is dependable, sells properly, and in plug-in hybrid type, has one of many longest electrical ranges out there on PHEVs within the U.S. However it’s not the perfect RAV4 ever. No, that honor goes to the two-door soft-top model that Toyota bought again in 1998. I don’t care if you happen to disagree, since you are mistaken.

Perhaps it wasn’t probably the most sensible. Or probably the most highly effective. Or probably the most gasoline environment friendly. However who cares? That little ol’ RAV4 had spunk! It had allure! It was enjoyable! It won’t have been a corner-carver, however you realize what else isn’t a corner-carver? The present RAV4.

Right here, let’s have MotorWeek hose and automotive journalism icon John Davis inform us a little bit bit extra in regards to the 1998 Toyota RAV4 Smooth-Prime:

Proper out of the gate, Davis calls the first-generation RAV4 “cute” and “simply plain enjoyable to drive.” To cite him once more, “Now, what may Toyota do to make the already enjoyable RAV4 much more so?” Clearly, give the two-door model a soft-top. Which Toyota did.

As Davis factors out, it’s a technique that works with sports activities automobiles, so clearly, Toyota knew it might make the lil RAV4 even higher. And in true sports activities automobile type, Toyota skipped a power-operated soft-top in favor of a handbook one. For lightness, clearly.

It won’t have provided “the wind-in-the-hair really feel of a real convertible,” however who cares? It’s not like the present RAV4 gives that both. And the perfect half? Upgrading to the clearly superior RAV4 Smooth-Prime was free! That’s proper, the $16,798 all-wheel-drive mannequin MotorWeek examined value precisely the identical because the hardtop model.

So there you go. Case closed. The primary-generation Toyota RAV4 Smooth-Prime is canonically the perfect Toyota RAV4 of all time. At the very least right here on Jalopnik, that’s.