If ignorance has a sexy sibling, it’s mystery. It’s one thing to not know why something is or what something is, but not knowing why something is is a hell of a lot more fun when that something is baffling or confusing or amusing or engaging in some way. Make it just a touch sinister, and you’ve transformed ignorance into mystery. I think the fact that first-generation non-sunroof Toyota Sequoias have a little mystery of this sort associated with them. It’s the Mystery of Why The Hell Does This Thing Have Five Separate Sunglass Holders In The Overhead Console.
Many, likely most, cars made in the past 20 years or so have some sort of flip-down sunglass holder, most commonly in a headliner-mounted console above the rear-view mirror. We all know these: you push on them, and a little door swings down, revealing a little protected slot to stick your sunglasses. Most cars have one of these.
The 2002-2004 Toyota Sequoia, though, if optioned with no sunroof (which is not very common; really, only the base trim Sequoias had no sunroof; a Toyota rep told me that as soon as you add any option packages to the Sequoia, a sunroof almost always shows up, too) will have, spreading down the center of its headliner, like some sort of spine, a large overhead console that contains an improbable and seemingly absurd five sunglass holders.
Five! Maybe the thinking was that everyone who could occupy a seat in the car should, by divine right, have a safe and convenient place to store their sunglasses (or other eyewear; there’s nothing that says you couldn’t slide a nice pair of Warby Parker readers in there) because, somehow, that was considered a priority? It’s not clear, at all.
And, of course, I’m by no means the first person to point this out. There have been posts on various places on the internet from Sequoia owners quite baffled by this quintet of sunglass cubbies for years:
It looks like madness, doesn’t it? And now, thanks to Tik Tok, there’s been a bit of a resurgence of interest in the Mystery of All The Damn Sequoia Sunglass Holders as people are sharing them, via the magic of digital moving pictures, with the world.
Here, look:
@b14k3bix Noone ever talks about the feautures #toyota #newcar #sequoia #toyotasequoia #trending #dougdemuro
… and here’s another one:
@doctorbcruse My Sequoia has so many sunglasses holders. #fyp #sequoia #tree #sunsout #sunglasses #noclue #duet
Okay, one more:
@sn0zberries
I’m sure there’s more out there, but you get the idea. The thing has a crapload of sunglass holders, and it’s weirding everybody out. I’m pretty confused, too; I get that maybe Toyota just needed to fill a lot of space on that sunroofless headliner, and after they stuck in some map lights and provisions for garage door opening buttons and so on, they maybe just ran out of ideas and copy-pasted that lone sunglass holder five times? They did make the last two bigger, maybe for oversized Elton John-style novelty glasses, I suppose
I reached out to Toyota, hoping to get some answers, but, to be honest, the response I got only led to more questions. The first response I got was an outright denial that Toyota even made these consoles! I was told that after talking to both Toyota R&D and their Calty Design Center, they had determined that this was an aftermarket accessory and not original Toyota equipment.
Wait a minute. Something doesn’t smell right here. Looking at a lot of eBay ads, I found the shot I was looking for – a nice, clear Toyota sticker, complete with part and patent numbers:
That part number linked to a number of places selling this genuine, OEM Toyota part, and most of those patent numbers have to do with electrical equipment that may be incorporated into the console, like a vehicle compass. The point is, this is not an aftermarket part! It’s OEM! I reached back out to Toyota and showed them my findings, perhaps a bit indignantly.
Immediately, the story changed. Now Toyota was admitting that, yes, this was their part, and while it was not common, it did exist on those base model packages. I was told that the power moonroof was a $1,005 standalone option, so lots of people jumped at that chance.
As far as why, I was simply told
“So far as engineers and designers are concerned, we don’t have any information we can provide internally from folks who worked on the vehicle. Which bums me out. Sorry about that, Jason.”
Well, crap. And I do appreciate Toyota’s PR team, who are always helpful and knowledgeable. Except this time, and as a result of this dichotomy, I suspect something, I don’t know, sinister.
Why would they pretend that this was an aftermarket part? Why is Toyota so hush-hush about the thinking behind the legendary pentapockets for sunglasses? What are they hiding? What’s the angle here? Something is clearly up.
There’s no reason for Toyota to try to distance themselves from this remarkable feature, especially with all the new attention it’s getting; this is the sort of mind-share attention that you can’t buy, and a savvy marketing team would be all over this, perhaps offering an all-new six sunglass holder for the new Toyota Sequoia.
So, after all this, things have just gotten weirder. We still don’t understand the motivation for such a shocking amount of sunglass holders in a single vehicle, and we now have the added mystery of Toyota’s strange reaction.
This isn’t over.
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The post Toyota Can’t Explain Why The Original Sequoia Had An Absurd Five Sunglasses Holders appeared first on The Autopian.
