- Toyota dropped an aerodynamic skid plate for the previous-gen Hilux.
- The part reduces floating and crosswind sensitivity on the highway.
- The accessory is priced at $470 including tax and installation costs.
The Hilux has moved into a new generation, but Toyota hasn’t written off the truck that came before it. The company’s in-house retrofit and customization arm, the Toyota Upgrade Factory, has rolled out a new part aimed at sharpening how the previous-gen Hilux drives.
You’d expect that kind of brief to produce a suspension piece or a strut brace. Instead, it’s an aluminum skid plate with aerodynamic fins. The “Shibetsu Fin Undercover”, as it’s called, adds underbody protection, then goes further, promising greater stability and reduced sensitivity to crosswinds.
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The engineering behind it came out of Toyota’s Shibetsu Proving Ground in Hokkaido. Engineers digging into the truck’s underbody airflow found that its tall ground clearance tends to set off small vibrations, and those vibrations leave the air pressure uneven from one side of the truck to the other.
According to Toyota, the Shibetsu Fin Undercover “smooths out turbulent airflow around the vehicle, reducing the pressure difference between the left and right rear of the vehicle, and improving driving stability when cornering, driving straight, and during external disturbances like crosswinds”
Toyota claims that the small fins on the aluminum skid plate cut vibrations under 1Hz to one-tenth of their original levels. The accessory doesn’t compromise the approach angle of the midsize truck, and it still allows easy access for oil changes.
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Getting the product to market wasn’t easy, though. Stamping 5 mm (0.2 inches) high aerodynamic fins out of a solid 3 mm (0.12 inches) thick aluminum sheet proved to be an engineering challenge that multiple industrial firms initially turned down.
To pull it off, Toyota partnered with specialized metalworking artisans in the famous Tsubame-Sanjo region of Niigata Prefecture, combining a high-precision multi-stage press molding process with hand adjustments on manual bending machines.
The underbody shield fits Hilux examples built between August 2017 and August 2022, as well as those produced between July 2023 and October 2024. It’s priced at ¥75,900 ($470) including taxes and installation at an authorized dealer.
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Interestingly, the Hilux isn’t the first Toyota to make use of Shibetsu Fins. The Land Cruiser 250 Series offers similar underbody add-ons, compatible with models built from March 2024 onward and priced at ¥31,680 ($200) including installation.
