2024 Toyota Tacoma breaks on website for enthusiasts

Toyota said Friday it planned to reveal the redesigned 2024 Tacoma on May 19. A day later, the midsize pickup's enthusiast base apparently decided that was too long to wait, found a back door into the automaker's website and posted an image of the upcoming vehicle for all to see.

The leaked image was first posted on tacoma4g.com and shows a white 2024 Tacoma 4x4 with black trim traversing through sand.

Doug Liu, a co-owner of tacoma4g.com, said he verified the image "by sleuthing on the Toyota website and matching up the hosting domain."

One of tacoma4g.com's users "found the image by taking the URL from previous Toyota images and changing the path and file names before landing on this image of the next-gen Taco in all its glory," Liu said.

The image shows the pickup will adopt many styling cues from the larger Tundra, including the styling lines on its hood, lighting elements and the front fascia.

In a brief statement emailed to Automotive News, a spokesperson for Toyota said only that "we are excited to see the enthusiasm around the new Tacoma and we are looking forward to the official reveal on May 19th."

The Tacoma is top-selling midsize pickup in the U.S. and will be the third of the Japanese brand's four body-on-frame vehicles sold in the U.S. to move onto Toyota Motor Corp.'s global F1 platform. They are known internally as the Four Brothers: the Tundra, Sequoia, Tacoma and 4Runner.

Design patent filings released in South America also signal the Tacoma will adopt the front styling of the Tundra.

Toyota has released a series of teaser images in recent weeks, giving hints about the fourth-generation Tacoma in advance of the reveal. Included in those is confirmation that it will have an optional hybrid i-Force Max powertrain, as does the Tundra full-size pickup and Sequoia large SUV, tuned specifically to provide more power and towing capacity instead of just added fuel efficiency.

The redesign is expected to be powered by a turbocharged 2.4-liter inline four-cylinder engine as well as the hybridized optional powertrain. It will be available with an optional manual transmission.

Editor's note: An earlier version of this story erroneously credited 4thgentacoma.com for the leaked images of the 2024 Toyota Tacoma.