There was a time when the Toyota Corolla was just a bulletproof unexciting compact sedan your grandmother drove to church. Then, because the corporate marketing gods dictated that every vehicle on earth must sit four inches higher, we were forced to accept the Corolla Cross crossover. But Toyota’s accountants in South America (disappointed) looked at the wildly printing money press that is the Fiat Toro.
Enter the latest automotive open secret leaking out of Brazil: Project 150D, a unibody compact pickup truck built entirely on the bones of that very same Corolla Cross, currently being thrashed around internal testing facilities in São Paulo.
This Frankenstein creation isn’t just a distant boardroom fantasy; it is already running around in its definitive production bodywork, aiming for a late 2026 or early 2027 launch. Toyota’s strategy here is wonderfully cynical. Instead of engineering a dedicated, ground-up small truck, they are simply cannibalizing their existing compact SUV platform to save a buck.
However, to save face and avoid a total copy-paste job, rumors suggest the truck will feature a completely redesigned front fascia. But the real corporate comedy lies in how Toyota plans to segregate the economic classes. If you spring for the flagship lifestyle version, you get a fancy, continuous LED light bar stretching across the tailgate.
To prove that the internet never waits for official, sanitized press releases, virtual artist Kleber Silva of KDesign AG has already rendered what this parts-bin mashup might look like. Silva’s digital crystal ball perfectly captures Toyota’s dual-personality strategy: a rugged, heavy-hitting plug-in hybrid lifestyle rig on one hand, and a painfully basic internal combustion variant riding on sad, naked steel wheels on the other. It is a brilliant piece of visual satire that is likely uncomfortably close to reality.
When it hits the market, Project 150D won’t just have to battle established players like the Fiat Toro, Chevrolet Montana, and Ram Rampage; it will also face upcoming hybrid invaders like the Renault Niagara and the BYD Mako.
