The First Toyota Tundra Was Almost Called the T-150. Then Ford Got Involved

In the late 1990s, Toyota almost released a full-size truck called the T-150 as a successor to the tween T100, which was neither a full-size nor a mid-size truck. The Toyota T-150 would’ve been a direct competitor to the Ford F-150 on the U.S. market, had it been released. The two rivals would’ve been separated by only one letter in name. Naturally, Ford wouldn’t have it.

When Toyota was shopping a model name for its new pickup to take on Ford and Chevy, it made sense to follow the naming scheme set by its largest truck at the time, the T100. That model was bigger than the Tacoma but smaller than full-sizers from domestic brands.

Toyota called the T100 an “intermediate-size” truck, which obviously isn’t as snappy a designation. The main reason for the T100’s strange dimensions was that Toyota was afraid of competing directly with American truck makers who owned the market for big pickups, according to Automotive News.

So, the T100 occupied its own niche in the U.S., which failed to resonate with buyers due to its size and underpowered engines—options ranging from four to six cylinders. When it was time to make a new model, Toyota decided to take the big step of going full-size and putting a V8 in the engine bay. That truck would go on to become the first-generation Tundra, but it was almost known as the T-150. A favorable number, as decades of Ford sales can attest.

The F-150 was already a best-selling vehicle in America when Toyota proposed its new T-150, but Ford lobbied against the title. Ford successfully claimed the name met conditions for trademark infringement due to its similarity to the F-150, as the Los Angeles Times reported in 1998.

Historically, Toyota seems to have had a penchant for truck names that were either straight to the point or uninspired, depending on your perspective. This is most apparent in the Toyota Truck (aka Pickup) which was the name of the model that eventually became the Tacoma in 1995.

The T-150 would’ve been a simple alphanumeric name that followed in sequence from the T100—dash notwithstanding. The same could always be said of the Ford F-Series, but, for whatever reason, the F-150 has stuck in the minds of truck buyers for decades. To be fair, Ford got there first, with the F-150 dating back to the mid-’70s.