The Grand Highlander’s toned-down exterior avoids most of the excessive angles and plastic cladding bolted onto so many big SUVs as an attempt to beef up rugged cred. Instead, the smoother design hints at the fact that this new SUV is undeniably a people pleaser, inside and out. The whole point, as Toyota’s marketing materials will suggest, is to bring together multi-generational families with children, friends, pets, and gear—so I immediately needed to climb into the third row of seats to test whether they sufficiently differentiate Grand Highlander from its bigger and smaller siblings.
Michael Teo Van Runkle/SlashGearTo get there, I scrambled over the second row, with its removable center console and nifty step plate on each side of the captain’s chairs. Unfortunately, actually folding the second row seats forward requires something of an engineering degree—even the Toyota handlers on site struggled to do so. But once in the third row, I fit surprisingly well at 6’1″ with long legs and a short torso. Those 33.5 inches of third row legroom seem pretty legit, to say the least, and the headroom never forced me to hunch over, either.
Michael Teo Van Runkle/SlashGearToyota also claims that the Grand Highlander can fit seven full-sized suitcases behind the third row, even if doing so will likely require a bit of Tetris-style strategy. In terms of measurements on paper, the rear cargo compartment can fit 21 cubic feet with all the seats up, 60 cubic feet with the third row folded down flat, and 98 cubic feet with both the second and third rows folded. Suffice to say, the physical volume of the interior feels closer to Sequoia than Highlander.
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