2024 Toyota Tacoma Is a Manual Labor of Love

If you’re ever challenged to name three new turbocharged, manual-transmission Toyotas—say, by the wizard who guards the bridge on your daily commute—the first two are easy. You’ve got the GR Corolla, the GR Supra and, er . . . do they still make the Celica All-Trac?

No, but Toyota does offer the 2024 Tacoma with a six-speed manual transmission, one that’s hooked to a 270-hp turbocharged 2.4-liter four-cylinder and rear-wheel drive. (Okay, it’s part-time four-wheel drive, but please indulge us in our enthusiast hyperbole.) We regard the manual Tacoma as incontrovertible evidence that Toyota still cares about the transparently thin tranche of buyers who want a three-pedal vehicle. And with Jeep’s abandonment of the manual-transmission Gladiator, the Tacoma now has the market for stick-shift pickups all to itself.

The Tacoma’s manual transmission is available only on four-door, four-wheel-drive models but is offered on multiple trims: the basic work-truck SR ($38,395), as well as the TRD Sport and TRD Off-Road (both $43,295). On the SR, the manual and automatic versions cost the same, but the manual gets 270 horsepower and 310 pound-feet of torque, while the automatic trucks make do with 228 horses and 243 pound-feet; free horsepower would be incentive enough for us to limber up our clutch legs. Conversely, the manual versions of the higher trim levels are slightly down on power compared to their automatic counterparts—more on that in a moment—but offer a financial incentive for self-shifting: The manual cuts $1100 from the price of the TRD Off-Road model we drove.

Our sample Tacoma included the $8940 TRD Off-Road Premium Package that brings a sunroof, synthetic leather upholstery, heated and ventilated front seats, a 14-inch multimedia display, JBL premium stereo, and a powered tailgate, among other niceties. Tailgating aficionados will appreciate the 400-watt AC outlets in the bed and cabin, as well as the sound system’s center channel speaker, which doubles as a removable Bluetooth speaker. This truck also included the $1230 anti-roll bar disconnect mechanism that enables increased front-end suspension articulation. While the SR stakes out the bargain territory, complete with a leaf-spring rear suspension (upper trims feature rear coils), you can option a manual-transmission Tacoma to the precipice of Land Cruiser financial territory—you’ll want to budget $53,465 for one like ours. Toyota shrewdly perceives that the remaining cohort of manual-transmission die-hards includes both work-truck spendthrifts and Gen Xers who always wanted Marty McFly’s dream truck—that tasty Back to the Future 1985 SR5—and can now afford a decked-out modern-day equivalent. Someday is now, Jennifer!

Predictably, some of the manual’s performance metrics suffer compared to the automatic truck. The manual Taco earns EPA-estimated fuel economy of 18 mpg city, 23 mpg highway, and 20 mpg combined, representing a 1-mpg drop across the board versus the automatic. Horsepower and torque also are slightly down, with the manual trucks’ 270 horsepower and 310 pound-foot of torque trailing the non-SR automatic variant’s 278 horses and 317 pound-feet. Toyota also tinkered with the torque curve—automatics hit their peak at just 1700 rpm, while the manual ramps up in gentler fashion, peaking at 2800 rpm. Meanwhile, manual horsepower peaks at just 5400 rpm, 600 rpm lower than the peak for the automatic-equipped truck. These tuning tweaks, Toyota says, are “related to the flywheel” on the manual, which presumably is happier with a more progressive torque curve and lower overall rpm. However, the manual Tacoma is rated to tow 6400 pounds, the same as its automatic counterpart.

We’d opine that it’s worth trading eight horsepower for the view you get every time you open the driver’s door and see that manual shifter between the seats. The Tacoma’s center console is relatively tall, so the shift lever isn’t the yardstick of old-school trucks, and the feeling as you engage a gear makes you wonder if “snicktion” is a word. However, we’d expect the stick-shift TRD Off-Road to trail the automatic truck’s 6.8-second scoot to 60 mph, and not just because of its reduced output and the larger sprawl between ratios. The Tacoma’s dogged rev hang during upshifts makes it feel like the flywheel is the size of Stone Mountain. So you adapt, keeping revs low and pausing a breath before selecting the next gear—drive it like a diesel with blown synchros and all is simpatico. Shifting at redline is, of course, an option, but it’s impossible to crack off a quick upshift without feeling a pang of mechanical sympathy for the clutch, which has to cope with the discrepancy between wheel speed and the unnatural rpm fall-off. It’s no way to live.

The manual Tacoma is best enjoyed at a calmer pace—go ahead and surf the torque in third gear while listening to the turbo’s chipper windup. Short-shift as a general rule, and everyone’s happy. Like the old proverb says, “A fall from the sky will hurt a lot, but a fall from a footstool is just a step, so shift at about 3000 rpm and your friends won’t wonder if you just learned to drive stick yesterday afternoon.”

Given the Taco’s laconic attitude toward upshifts, it’s interesting that it’s totally game to rip aggressive rev-matched downshifts. Press the iMT button on the console and the Tacoma will automatically rev-match downshifts with complete commitment, zinging the turbo four as far as it can go. It’s the second button we pushed every time we got in the truck, right after the bright-red TRD-badged starter.

We also tried out the no-clutch start, a mode that’s intended for tight trails where you want to get moving without an inch of potential rollback. To accomplish that, the Tacoma will start with the clutch engaged and the transmission in gear, the starter motor powering the truck forward until the engine fires. To use the clutchless start, your foot needs to be on the brake, so instead of clutch-throttle footwork you moderate the brake as the truck starts moving or you’ll stall it. It’s an acquired skill.

And manuals are an acquired taste, one that most of us developed in our formative years of driving. For decades, the existence of manual trucks was a given, but not anymore. This is it: the lonely Tacoma and its mechanically obsolete, defiantly charismatic six-speed manual. If you want one, get it while you can, because we have a feeling it might not be around forever.

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