Tacoma Gets A Namesake

Some might say Tacoma is to Washington cities what the pickup is to the automobile industry. Functional, but not too fancy or exciting.

So it seems appropriate that Toyota Motor Corp. named its new compact pickup the Tacoma.

The Tacoma, unveiled Thursday at the Chicago Auto Show, will replace the current nameless Toyota compact. The pickups will begin arriving in dealerships next month from the New United Motor Manufacturing Inc. plant in Fremont, Calif.

The Tacoma was designed for the U.S. market at Toyota studios in California. It competes in the market segment with the Ford Ranger, the nation’s best-selling compact pickup, GM’s S-series pickups, the Dodge Dakota and imports.