Penalty Box No More: Toyota and Lexus Crack the Dad Car Code

Ed. Note: It’s late January 2026 and, sitting here in Laurel Canyon, I’ve had a beat to reflect on what I actually liked driving in 2025. Instead of cranking out a dull and monotonous “Best Cars of the Year” column, I wanted to be a bit more intentional. I want to cover the automotive brands and what their cars mean in the specific, smog-tinged context of Los Angeles. Expect a series on different OEMs over the next few weeks. But to start? We’re digging into Toyota and Lexus.

From where I am sitting in my personal life, I’m either idling in the drop-off line at my kids' schools, watching a sea of monochromatic SUVs jockey for position, or stuck in traffic running errands, going to meetings, the office or picking up/dropping off/taking my kids and/or dog somewhere to do something. If I am lucky, I try and steal away for a few hours for a long drive or, if I can, hit the dirt.

For a long time, "Dad Car" was a pejorative. It meant you had given up. It meant you drove a beige sedan of resignation - an early-80s Chrysler K-Car, or the modern equivalent - always stuck in neutral.

The Dad Car isn't dead. It just evolved and there are cars for every stage of the “Dad Car” life, real or imagined from all of the OEMs.

But looking back at the time I got to spend in the Toyota and Lexus over the last year - a mix of 2025 and 2026 models - it’s clear these two brands have quietly, methodically and brilliantly cornered the market on cool fatherhood cars.

They aren't just building cars; they are building specific personas for every type of dad currently navigating the wilds of Los Angeles, from the shores of Malibu to the potholed messes of the 110 and the 101. Futzing around in different models from these corporate cousins, I think they've come awfully close to cracking the Dad Car code.

For the daily grind - the schlep to the office, the school run, the endless errands that define life in the flatlands of Los Angeles and occasional off-road session - a Dad Car-focused lineup has become shockingly sharp for these brands and it's got some strong game.

And, the state of these brands is strong, not because they’ve reinvented the wheel, but because they’ve finally figured out how to make competence feel like desire. It’s no longer about appliances; it’s about intent.

But first, a story...

Los Angeles in the rain is a specific kind of humiliation. The drainage fails, the traffic lights panic and the crumbling infrastructure dissolves into a wet, gray paste. It was in this exact misery, on a wet Tuesday evening in rush hour, that the hierarchy of the current automotive Dad Car market clarified itself to me.

On Wilshire Boulevard, navigating that jagged trench between San Vicente and Fairfax where the subway construction and the new LACMA Spaceship has turned the road into a mosaic of steel plates and punctured tires.

Outside, the world was loud and wet. Inside, I was listening to Avery Trufelman's superlative "Articles of Interest" podcast at a very low volume entirely numb to the violence of the road surface.

To wit: the Lexus LX 700h Overtrail (from $116,685).

This was one of the top SUVs I drove in 2025. Not because it is the fastest, or because it has the most screens, but because of this specific moment on Wilshire. The Overtrail trim puts the LX on 33-inch all-terrain tires and softens the suspension logic, ostensibly for dirt, but in practice, for the mishegoss of driving in this city, at this specific time. The hybrid system - a 457 hp, twin-turbo V6 paired with an electric motor - doesn't scream; it's nice and quiet and is hardly there with nary a clunk of the gears changing or the hybrid system whirring.

I am a dad who insists he still has "edge." I have vintage denim. I have opinions on obscure watch movements. But what I really have is a desperate need for five minutes of silence. The LX gave me that. It is a bunker. In a city - and a life - that demands constant attention, the LX offers the ultimate luxury: indifference.

This need for a defense mechanism runs through the entire Toyota and Lexus lineup. They’ve quietly cornered the market on cars for men who are tired of posturing but still want to look cool and make an “actual effort”, as my wife would say.

Like the Toyota Prius Nightshade (from $32,800). I know, I know. Over the years, the Prius was like a public apology, a sign you had traded your soul for HOV lane access. Now, thanks to the outré redesign a few years ago and the Nightshade trim - all blacked out, sitting low, matte wheels - it looks like something you’d actually want to drive. It’s a stealth commuter and lets you keep the "cool dad" delusion alive while getting 50-plus miles per gallon from the updated 196-horsepower, 2.0-liter hybrid.

When the delusion, as it does, requires a much bigger prop, the Toyota Tundra SR5 CrewMax with a 5.5 foot bed (from $48,510) steps into the fray. I drove a Tundra with the optional $9,555 TRD Rally Package. I totally dig the early-80’s vibe tri-color heritage stripes - red, orange, yellow - like a merit badge from the scouts.

It is massive. It is unnecessary. But the 389 horsepower, i-FORCE twin-turbo V6 and all-wheel drive possesses a shoving force that denies the physics of the truck’s weight. The Bilstein shocks manage a difficult trick: they settle the truck, so you don’t spill your coffee as you roll around town on a set of 18-inch TRD Off-Road alloy wheels with all-terrain tires and suspension set up made for the OHV, not the HOV lanes.

That said, it projects my vibe of looking like I’m "doing work" and lends the suggestion that I might head to Baja, even though I’m off to Encino and even if the bed is mostly used for hauling vintage furniture from the Rose Bowl Flea Market that I definitely overpaid for, it’s good to make it seem like I ‘need that kinda room’ for my dirtbikes. I have no dirtbikes.

Though, it’s Toyota's family haulers where the "edge" meets the reality of having children who come with a lot of plastic equipment.

The Toyota Sequoia Capstone (from $85,235) is a swell choice with an interior warmed by walnut and semi-aniline leather and space for everyone. This is a big car and when you drive it, you feel the shudders slightly over the broken LA concrete. You accept this trade-off because you want to drive something that has the space and feels capable under the hood.

I made that trade a few weeks ago during an early-January LAX family pickup in the driving rain with seven suitcases. At times, the Capstone, with an i-FORCE MAX hybrid 3.4-liter twin-turbo V6 with 437 horsepower under the hood, called for a burly V-8, but I’ll take the reduced carbons of a hybrid anytime and I can now truly understand why people buy these. 

The Toyota Grand Highlander Hybrid Max Platinum (from $59,757) is a better, yet smaller mousetrap with a much longer name. While it lacks the Sequoia’s chrome-plated girth, the 2.4-liter turbo hybrid with 362-horsepower, does the job. It swallows ice skating bags and bicycles and lots of kids with equal aplomb while smoothing out the pavement below.

It is the car for the dad who has stopped pretending and just wants the day to end without any headache at all. The dads on Reddit seem to love it a whole lot.

Then there is the oddball: the all-electric and recently-updated 2026 Lexus RZ 550e F Sport (from $58,295). It is a grounded luxury EV option, the car for the hushed, creating a nice sealed electric bubble of silence. The RZ 550e is what I want in an EV - looks good and isn’t nausea inducing fast with a claimed 0-60 time of 4.1 seconds. I’d like a little more range - it’s now 228 miles, up from 196 miles from the 2025 model. The RZ’s dual motors provide a brisk enough acceleration and there is the strange, engaging feature of paddle-simulated shifts that fake the rhythm of an 8-speed transmission - Lexus calls this “M Mode”. It is a digital lie, but it’s fun. It isolates you. It works for the guy who loves tech but hates the fragility of it. That’s me in a nutshell.

The narrative is clear. The "Dad Car" is no longer about giving up. It is about gearing up in a sense of quiet solitude. Toyota and Lexus have mapped the phases of a dad’s life - from the compact efficiency of the Prius to the heavy isolation of the LX.

I realized that the ultimate luxury in 2026 isn't speed and luxury at all costs. It’s about the ability to move through a very, very chaotic world with an absolute, unshakeable competence. And if I look cool doing it, that helps, too.