2012 Toyota Tundra hauls spaceship to final location

Oct 20, 2012

Hello everyone! It’s Fred Marks again, General Manager of Classic Toyota. This month I’d like to talk about Toyota’s role in the recent retirement of the Endeavour space shuttle. The Endeavour, historic for its many missions into outer space for the United States, was recently retired and transported to its final resting place. Its final destination is the California Science Center, just 12-miles outside of Los Angeles, California, and it was towed there successfully by a stock 2012 Toyota Tundra CrewMax 4×4.

The shuttle, which will remain open to the public in an ongoing effort to promote the importance of space exploration, is remarkable in and of itself. The Toyota Tundra that towed it is remarkable too, because it proves just how much a stock Tundra can do.

Let’s be perfectly clear: the Endeavour, when combined with its custom-built dolly, weighs nearly 300,000 lbs. This is no small feat for a stock pickup truck; but the Tundra is no ordinary pickup. The stock truck used to tow the Endeavour was able to do so thanks to a 5.7-liter iForce V8 engine good for 381 horsepower. It’s the kind of power that helps the practical get the job done in a wide range of situations, including (now) towing spaceships.

This fun story is a great demonstration of the all-around quality of the 2012 Toyota Tundra. If you’re looking for trucks in Waukegan, be sure to check out our online inventory for up-to-date information on everything that we have in stock. We’ll be happy to show you a full line of Toyota vehicles that is imbued with the same forward thinking, boundary-pushing ability of the Toyota Tundra.