At this point I think the 3.5
At this point I think the 3.5 will be the last petrol motor for the taco. The trend at Toyota is to make everything a hybrid. So that's probably going to be the next setup. I'm like you and like the old school setups of the Toy 4runner with 4.0 and 5 speed and the Nissan frontier with the 4.0 and 5 speed. Ended up buying a new Frontier pro 4X. Just the test drive of the new taco was a torture. Can't imagine driving that gutless, early shifting, gear searching gas sucking mess as a daily. Not even remotely so.