30 Years of RAV: A Look at the 1996 Toyota RAV4
If any vehicle has become something of a mainstay on parkways where you drive and driveways where you park, it’s the Toyota RAV4. Currently sitting as one of the best-selling vehicles in our land, the RAV is new for the 2026 model year and is celebrating some three decades of being a significant influence on the landscape and towering source of income for dealer principals.
Since the embargo dropped last week on the new RAV, there has been no shortage of digital ink spilled about the model. That’s why we’ll point you to any one of those articles and instead focus on some specs of the first RAV to ply our shores all the way back in 1996.
[Images: Toyota]
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Total length of a four-door RAV4 during that era was only 162.0 inches, a solid 20 inches shorter than the 2026 model on which many writers penned a first drive last week. The first RAV’s wheelbase was an off-road friendly 94.9 inches.
That sounds more like a radio station today than the measure of space between the front and rear wheels of a rig designed for family duty. The wheelbase of a modern RAV is 105.9 inches. We’ll let you figure out the increase in overall overhang. Width? How about 66.7 inches versus 73.0 inches?
Total height is a far more interesting study, with the 1996 model clocking in at 65.4 inches and most trims of the 2026 model measuring 66.7 inches. No, that’s not a misprint: the new RAV is so wide as the old one was tall. With barely an inch of height between the two, yet far different totals for width and length, it puts an exclamation point on the rather awkward proportions of the original car; still, that didn’t hurt sales and was a boon for visibility. Anyone who has ever driven a first-gen RAV knows it is like piloting an upside down fishbowl.
Power? It had some, courtesy of 2.0L four banger good for 120 horsepower and 125 lb-ft of torque. But it is worth noting buff books of the day quoted a curb weight of just 2,868 pounds. These days, the net combined horsepower from a 2026 model’s hybrid system is roughly 236 horsepower depending on trim, meaning it has double the ponies of the original car.
The lightest front-drive new RAV is listed at 3,640 pounds with a fully loaded all-wheel drive example clocking in at nearly 4,000 pounds before passengers and fuel. With four well-fed Americans and a full tank of 87 octane on board, it isn’t unreasonable to estimate a 5,000 readout at the scales.
One more thing: in its early days, the RAV was available as a pert little two door model, measuring just 146.0 inches long on a scarcely believable 86.6 inch wheelbase with a roughly 2,500 lb curb weight. Now that’s diminutive. Your author is partial to the one shown here, with a soft top and the 1998-era mid-cycle refresh which brought crystal-like headlamp reflectors and nifty tri-bar taillights.
