I think the site was right when they surmised that toyota was attempting to compete with the 300. But despite the flash paint jobs and big grills, it still looks like a boring, derivative toyota. I suppose the next generation Avalon will start to ape the American Gangster style now that it's in fashion.

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Am i the only one that has no clue who troy trepaner or whoever is?

and seriously, there must be better cars to cover then avalons, i saw something on ford having a live 450hp mustang on a dyno letting people take practice drag runs, whares the post on that???

link: http://media.ford.com/article_display.cfm?article_id=21938

sorry if it was already posted

p.s. i would take a stock avalon over that.

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It's obvious Ford is not paying as much as Toyota is for coverage... "out of left field" my a$$!!

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Is it just me, or does that thing look like a Toyota Maybach?

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Exactly what I thought... Baby Maybach?

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"but something is going on when Troy Trepanier puts his name on one."

First, I too have no idea who Troy Trepanier is, and perhaps he's putting his name on one because Toyota is paying him? Remember all those customized Malibu's at SEMA when it came out 2-3 years ago? Funny how you don't see many now... I wonder how many slammed Avalons we'll see in 2-3 years at SEMA when the lauch ad budget dries up...

Last day of SEMA coverage... Yeah!

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If you're a "car guy" and you don't know who Trepanier is, then you're not really a car guy.

Said a different way, I'd bet you know of a guy called Chip Foose?? OK, Trepanier is the same guy only without a lot of expensive PR behind him.

A good comparison is to look at Foose's website (www.chipfoose.com) and then look at Trepanier's (www.radrides.com).

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This is looking more Scottsdale than California to me.

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The cool thing about Troy Trep-anyay is the cars he builds are as fast (or faster) than they look. They built one car called the Chicayne, which not only looks beautiful, but has 1,000+ hp. It's on his site.

As for this Avalon, I doubt much was touched under the hood.

Foose does excellent work too, but his showpieces tend to get the very prettied up 350 crate motor treatment.

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#7 hit the nail on the head!

I have lost all respect for Troy! Why in hell would he agree to do this? I hope the money is used to upgrade his garage and equipment so he can put it towards building REAL cars.

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