Half a Truck Gets Painted Before Toyota Signs Off on a TRD Pro Color
Toyota's CALTY studios say TRD Pro shades like 2027's Honeycomb begin life up to five years out — and no color is approved until a full-size vehicle wears it.
Toyota has pulled back the curtain on how its one-year-only TRD Pro paint colors come together. In a behind-the-scenes release published this week, the company's CALTY design studios say work on a shade can start as much as five years before it reaches a customer.
The colors are developed by two color, materials and finish (CMF) teams, one at CALTY in Newport Beach, California, and one in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Both pitch concepts built on trend research — the designers track outdoor-gear and lifestyle trade shows — and narrow the field together with Toyota's product planning group.
The finalists then become physical paint prototypes so the studios can test metallic and pearlescent finishes. Small panels, though, only get a candidate so far.
"We usually paint half a vehicle to evaluate the color at full scale," said Benjamin Jimenez, CALTY's general manager in Ann Arbor and chief designer for interior and exterior CMF. "A color can look great on a small panel, but when you see it on something as large as a Sequoia, your reaction can be completely different."
A shade is signed off only after a complete vehicle is painted, giving marketing, planning, and engineering teams a chance to judge it in person. Sellene Lee, chief CMF designer at the Newport Beach studio, says the team never picks a color arbitrarily — each one has to come with a story that holds up.
Twelve years of one-year colors
The program dates back to the 2015 model year, when the first TRD Pro trucks arrived in an orange called Inferno. The exclusive shade has changed every year since: Quicksand, Cement, Cavalry Blue, Voodoo Blue, Army Green, Lunar Rock, Solar Octane, Terra, Mudbath, and this year's Wave Maker blue, among others. Because each color is sold for a single model year, enthusiasts can date a truck at a glance by its paint.
Some shades travel further. Jimenez points to Cement, the 2017 color, which proved popular enough to spread across the broader Toyota lineup after its TRD Pro debut.
For 2027, the shade is Honeycomb, a deep metallic gold announced in late July for the Tundra, Sequoia, and Tacoma TRD Pro grades, with a slightly different variant called Hot Honey reserved for the 4Runner. Splitting the palette isn't new: in 2022, Toyota ran three exclusive colors at once, with Lime Rush on the 4Runner, Electric Lime Metallic on the Tacoma, and Solar Octane on the Tundra and Sequoia.
The color news arrived alongside hardware changes for 2027. Tundra and Sequoia TRD Pro models get newly tuned Fox QS3 shocks and standard red tow hooks, while the Tundra and Tacoma add available ISO-dynamic seats. Toyota says full specifications and pricing for the 2027 Tundra and Sequoia will follow closer to the start of production this fall.
