Toyota built a retro ‘4Runner TRD Surf’ with two doors and removable roof

The newest Toyota 4Runner debuted with real off-road chops and retro styling, in many ways bettering even its big brother Land Cruiser. Now Toyota has reached even further into the 4Runner’s heritage and created an homage to the OG first-gen. The concept even cuts the number of doors down to two and chops the roof off. The Toyota 4Runner TRD Surf is about as close as one can get to the one that started it all.

From the A-pillars forward the TRD Surf concept looks a lot like the 2025 4Runner. There’s a new skid plate and a rugged custom suspension consisting of one-off front axles and a billet aluminum control arms. These give the suspension more travel and accommodate 37-inch tires.

Moving toward the rear the more drastic changes come into focus. Look beneath the ocean wave paint job and you’ll see that the TRD Surf has only two doors. The original 4Runner was essentially a Hilux pickup modified to seat four, so it made sense that had only two doors. The second-gen came in two- and four-door body styles, but the “coupe” was discontinued in 1992 and and there hasn’t been a 4Runner with fewer than four doors since.

The biggest throwback to the original is the removable roof. The first-gen 4Runner threw a fiberglass canopy over the rear half for true open-top cruising, and the TRD Surf concept replicates that party trick with impressive accuracy, even down to the simple black roll hoop.

With the top installed it’s hard to tell there’s anything amiss. It’s an amazingly good fit. The diagonal pillar is a nice homage to past 4Runners. Toyota’s Marty Schwerter, who has served as lead builder of several of Toyota’s SEMA builds, said inspiration came from his memories of cruising the Pacific Coast Highway in a Toyota mini truck.

With the rear doors removed access to the second row is limited when the top is attached. Schwerter and his team engineered a flip-forward passenger seat, just like those in the olden days. Other retro cues include custom wheels that reminiscent of the old Toyota “snowflakes” (even though that wasn’t an option on the 4Runner) an old school “turbo” decal on the doors.

The first-gen 4Runner was available with a turbocharged 22R-TE engine, an extremely rare option. Some estimates say that just 1,000 examples were fitted with it. For the first time in decades, the new 4Runner is once again powered by a 4-cylinder, drawing even more of a connection to the original. This time around, the turbo 2.4 generates 278 horsepower and 317 lb-ft of torque, far more than the 22R-TE’s 135 horses and 173 lb⋅ft, though that was impressive for its time.

The final nod to enthusiasts is the name itself. The 4Runner TRD Surf clearly has a surfing theme but the name is a reference to the Hilux Surf, the Japanese name for the 4Runner. Toyota picked that name specifically because they wanted to evoke the surf culture of Hawaii and California that was booming in Japan at the time. Now it has come full circle on a truck designed for and sold in America. The 4Runner TRD Surf concept will debut next week at the SEMA Show in Las Vegas.

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Images courtesy of Toyota.