2008 Black Toyota Prius on 2040-cars

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2014 Toyota 4Runner Limited

What would you say if we told you that outside of Jeep and Land Rover, the best brand for those who want to go off road is Toyota? Sounds remarkable, eh? But the truth is, Toyota's history of providing vehicles for the rougher bits of our blue marble dates back to 1950, barely a decade after Willys built the first Jeeps and only a few years after Land Rover made its big debut with the iconic Series I.
In fact, Toyota's start in off-roaders was with a small contract for providing the US Army with vehicles, during the Korean War. From that, the BJ was spawned. This Jeep-like vehicle evolved into the 20 Series and then into the iconic 40 Series Land Cruiser in the 1960s.
So yes, Toyota knows its way around the trails. While the Land Cruiser, deservedly, gets all the attention thanks to its impressive longevity, we're partial to the 4Runner, which is a far more affordable entry that serves as Toyota's challenger to the Jeep Grand Cherokee.

Zombie cars roundup: Dodge has sold 3 new Vipers this year

Car models come and go, but as revealed by monthly sales data, once a car is discontinued, it doesn't just disappear instantly. And in the case of some models, vanishing into obscurity can be a slow, tedious process. That's the case with the 12 cars we have here. All of them have been discontinued, but car companies keep racking up "new" sales with them. There are actually more discontinued cars that are still registering new sales than what we decided to include here. We kept this list to the oldest or otherwise most interesting vehicles still being sold as new, including a supercar. We'll run the list in alphabetical order, starting with *drumroll* ... BMW 6 Series: 55 total sales BMW quietly removed the 6 Series from the U.S. market during the 2019 model year. It had been available in three configurations, a hardtop coupe, a convertible and a sleek four-door coupe-like shape.   BMW i8: 18 total sales We've always had a soft spot for the BMW i8, despite the fact that it never quite fit into a particular category. It was sporty, but nowhere near as fast as similarly-priced competitors. It looked very high-tech and boasted a unique carbon fiber chassis design and a plug-in hybrid powertrain, but wasn't really designed for maximum efficiency or maximum performance. Still, the in-betweener was very cool to look at and drive, and 18 buyers took one home over the course of 2021.   Chevy Impala: 750 total sales The Impala represented classic American tastes at a time when American tastes were shifting away from soft-riding sedans with big interior room and trunk space and into higher-riding crossovers. A total of 750 sales were inked last year.   Chrysler 200: 15 total sales The Chrysler 200 was actually a pretty nice sedan, with good looks and decent driving dynamics let down by a lack of roominess, particularly in the back seat. Of course, as we said regarding the Chevy Impala, the number of Americans in the market for sedans is rapidly winding down, and other automakers are following Chrysler's footsteps in canceling their slow-selling four-doors. Even if Chrysler never really found its footing in the ultra-competitive midsize sedan segment, apparently dealerships have a few leftover 2017 200s floating around. And for some reason, 15 buyers decided to sign the dotted line to take one of these aging sedans home last year.

Junkyard Gem: 1991 Lexus ES 250

When the Lexus LS 400 first appeared here in late 1989 (as a 1990 model), sellers of German-made luxury sedans broke out in the shaky sweats and car shoppers flocked to see — and buy — this well-built statusmobile that retailed for about 60% of the price of the cheapest S-Class. Not attracting nearly as much attention at the time was the other introductory vehicle of the Lexus brand: the ES 250. Sold here for just the 1990 and 1991 model years, the first-generation ES was the most Camry-like of its kind and the hardest to find today. Here's a '91 in a San Francisco Bay Area yard. All of the ESs for the model's first couple of decades were based on the Camry, so they benefited from the Camry's famous reliability while suffering from its not-so-exciting image. Toyota made a good effort to make the 1990-1991 cars look something like their LS big brothers, but their Camry origins are quite obvious from most angles. Later ESs got more distinctive body panels and sales got stronger when that happened. Power came from this 2.5-liter V6, which was the hairiest engine available in the 1991 US-market Camry. 159 horsepower, which was pretty good for a car like this in the early 1990s. A five-speed manual transmission could be had in the ES 250 and ES 300 through the 1993 model year, but those early-1990s American car shoppers wishing for a midsize luxury sedan with three pedals generally opted for an Audi or BMW, with most of the rest settling on the Acura Legend. I'll keep looking out for a five-speed ES in a car graveyard, of course, but finding any first-gen ES has been a tough challenge in itself. This one got within 252 miles of the 200,000 mark, not bad for a typical 1991 car but also not especially impressive for a member of the Camry family. The interior was much nicer than what you got in any Camry, but junkyard shoppers have hit this one hard and its opulence no longer shines through. Toyotas had some variation of this switch from the late 1970s and into our current century. This version comes straight out of the Cressida. This content is hosted by a third party. To view it, please update your privacy preferences. Manage Settings. That Lexus noise-testing room sure is impressive! This content is hosted by a third party. To view it, please update your privacy preferences. Manage Settings. Good in the rain, too. This content is hosted by a third party. To view it, please update your privacy preferences. Manage Settings.