Toyota's RAV4 invented a vehicle class and then dethroned the F-150
For nearly four decades the Ford F-150 pickup was America's top-selling vehicle. In February 2025 a small Toyota crossover took its place. The RAV4, often called the first modern compact crossover, has passed 15 million sales, more than any other SUV in history.
Work began in 1989 under the code name 153T. The idea was to give buyers the extra cargo room, high seating position and optional four-wheel drive of an SUV while keeping the easy handling of an ordinary car, so Toyota built it on a platform borrowing pieces from the Carina and Corolla. The name stands for Recreational Active Vehicle with 4-wheel drive, even though plenty of versions drive only the front wheels.
The three-door version launched in Japan in May 1994, a five-door followed in March 1995, and American sales started in January 1996. Automobile Magazine named it its 1997 Automobile of the Year. A curious offshoot was the RAV4 EV, a battery-electric version built from 1997 to 2003, mostly for fleet leasing. It could travel about 120 miles on a charge, but only 1,484 were leased or sold in California, and almost 500 were still running in mid-2012.
The second generation, styled at Toyota's Calty studio in California, went on sale in July 2000. In Australia it overtook the Honda CR-V in 2001 to become the country's top-selling SUV. American registration data from 2003 and 2004 showed it had a higher share of women drivers than almost any other model, the Volkswagen New Beetle possibly excepted.
Size crept upward from there. The 2006 redesign introduced a long-wheelbase version for North America and Australia, and some markets could order a 3.5-litre V6 capable of reaching 60 mph in roughly six seconds. From November 2008, RAV4s for North America were built in Woodstock, Ontario, and Chinese production began in Tianjin in March 2009.
Source: Toyota RAV4
