The compact SUV that fits where a Highlander won't
carlots.ng editorial · 23 Oct 2026
The RAV4's whole appeal in Lagos is proportion: tall enough to see over traffic and take a flooded side street in the rains, small enough to actually fit the parking spot outside a Lekki office building or a Yaba compound gate. The four-cylinder returns noticeably better fuel economy than anything in the Highlander class, and it carries the same mechanical reputation as every other Toyota on this list.
It gives up interior room to get there -- a third-row family outgrows it fast, and the boot is adequate rather than generous. AWD versions handle the rainy-season floods that strand sedans on the Third Mainland approach roads, though most Nigerian-market cars sold here are the cheaper front-wheel-drive trim, which is fine on tarmac and a genuine limitation the one week a year the gutters overflow.