The automotive world is filled with secret indicators.
You’re superb by no means realizing them. However in the event you’re the kind to take a freeway cloverleaf somewhat quicker than strictly mandatory simply to really feel the wheels grip, they make a street journey extra enjoyable. You may take pleasure in passing a uncommon trim degree of a automobile, or recognizing a high-performance model of an in any other case widespread car because it passes you.
One among our favourite shibboleths is Toyota’s annual alternative of a signature colour for a handful of particular automobiles. The world’s largest automaker builds hyper-capable off-road variations of some of its vans and SUVs below the “TRD Professional” identify.
There’s at all times a Tacoma TRD Professional, a Tundra TRD Professional, and a 4Runner TRD Professional. Lately, there’s been a Sequoia TRD Professional as properly, even when fewer consumers are prone to take their near-luxury, battleship-size household SUV to the dunes.
The TRD Professional fashions are at all times accessible in a signature colour — a brand new one yearly. For 2026, it’s a near-neon icy blue Toyota calls “Wave Maker.”
We prefer it. Virtually-fluorescent blues have been a factor within the automotive trade in recent times. Ford’s Grabber Blue began the development. Audi’s Turbo Blue is only a whisper deeper. Wave Maker is maybe a bit lighter, virtually designed to promote to College of North Carolina at Chapel Hill graduates.
It’s a radical departure from final yr’s Mudbath and 2024’s rust-colored Terra.
“We had a number of years of heat pure hues impressed by conventional landscapes like Terra and Mudbath as signature colours. With Wave Maker, we had been impressed by unexplored areas of journey, together with excessive territory and even past Earth,” says Benjamin Jimenez, normal supervisor of Toyota’s CALTY design analysis studio.
Toyota will ship the primary 2026 TRD Professional fashions to sellers within the fall.
We should always word which you can nonetheless order a TRD Professional within the common parade of whites, blacks, and grays. However talking the key language is extra enjoyable.
