Toyota Readies Its War Machines

By Motoring Channel Staff - 11/July/2006

Melbourne, Australia — The Australian large car market is about to become a very busy place in the next six months, with plenty of new product to tempt buyers. 

Udpate: Click here for the full details on the TRD Aurion, which has a 241kW supercharged engine powering the front wheels.

Holden is readying it's next generation Commodore, complete with 6.0-litre V8s and advanced safety systems, as Ford holds it's cards close to its chest, likely to return fire with a few new treats before year's end, while Mitsubishi is persisting with its well-sorted 380 large car.

But what of Toyota? We've all heard the news that the Aurion coming later in the year, essentially a replacement for the unloved Avalon large car and potential rival for Falcon, Commodore and 380, but Toyota has been fairly quiet. 

But that's all about to change real soon.

We can now report that Toyota is putting in motion plans for an assault on the Australian market, and its high performance TRD (Toyota Racing Development) division will be at the head of this push. Toyota has confirmed that the first vehicle to get the TRD treatment - the equivalent of HSV, Ralliart and FPV - will be the upcoming Aurion. It will feature a supercharged version of the 2GR-FE Toyota engine, a 3.5-litre V6 with a 4-valve, DOHC cylinder head that produces somewhere within the vicinity of 200kW @ 6200rpm and 336Nm of torque @ 4700rpm in its naturally aspirated form.

With the added supercharger and intercooler, the 3.5-litre V6 is expected to develop even more power, though whether it will trouble the FPV and HSV big guns, which develop close to 300kW of power and more than 500Nm of torque, remains to be seen. It is also still unknown whether the new TRD Aurion models will be front-wheel drive or all-wheel drive. 

Toyota does have rear-wheel drive applications (mainly from its Lexus models), yet history suggests that a rear-wheel drive Toyota in Australia is not likely. But in this instance, we'd love to be proven wrong.

We can confirm that the Aurion will be the first TRD-tuned vehicle from Toyota (the HiLux, Corolla and Yaris are expected to follow), powered by a supercharged engine and set for a 2007 release. This is big news in and of itself, but there's another twist in the TRD story thus far, and it involves FPV and Ford.

Upon revealing that the Aurion would be the first vehicle to be tuned by its new performance arm, Toyota has also revealed that TRD will be managed by UK companyProdrive, which also owns part of Ford Performance Vehicles - the other owner of FPV is of course Ford Australia. 

Prodrive currently runs a number of racing teams across the globe, from the Ford Performance Racing (FPR) team in the Australian V8 Supercar series to the Aston Martin's factory race team and even the Subaru World Rally Team in the World Rally Championship. David Richards is the man running Prodrive, who employ close to 1000 staff in the UK, North America, Germany, Thailand and Australia.

Toyota explained the new TRD collaboration will be operated and staffed by performance specialist Prodrive, totally independent of its other operations in Australia (read: FPV). TRD's corporate manager, Greg Gardner, said that Prodrive's involvement was an important part of the recipe for TRD success, and seeing as how FPV has been successful in marketing its Falcon-based sports cars, it can't have been a hard decision for Prodrive to want of a piece of the Toyota pie as well.

The new TRD (Toyota Racing Development) facility will be based in Victoria (as are HSV and FPV), and Gardner mentioned that assembly operation would apply TRD-designed enhancements using predominantly locally supplied components. 

"Prodrive’s ability and commitment in the assembly of TRD enhancements is an important step in delivering quality vehicles," Mr Gardner said. "Toyota will draw on Prodrive’s vast experience and credibility in delivering performance vehicles for a range of manufacturers. Unlike other operations involving Prodrive, TRD will design, develop and hold the intellectual property to the TRD enhancements," Mr Gardner said.

Further to the news that Prodrive will run the new TRD outfit, Toyota Australia has also come clean with its next generation Camry, which is expected to share parts with the larger Aurion model, showing off the look of the new 2007 Camry at its Altona manufacturing plant recently.

Toyota explained that the line-off event is a Toyota tradition for manufacturing employees to celebrate the launch of the new car, which is the only 4-cylinder car built in Australia. More than 2000 employees were on hand for the event, along with many dignitaries from Australia and Japan, including the Victorian Premier, Steve Bracks.

Toyota Australia's chief, Ted Okada, said the Camry manufacturing line off was the culmination of a massive $450 million investment in the facilities and technologies: "Toyota Australia is entering one of the most exciting periods in its history of manufacturing in this country. To make these cars, we had to revolutionise the Altona plant. Today, we have a plant that is unique by integrating many components of car making into a compact location. This makes us an effective and efficient manufacturing operation," said Mr Okada.

Australia's #1 car maker said that major investments in the plant has allowed for the creation of a new highly automated Global Body Line, on which the bodies of the new Camry and Aurion are made. Toyota's new Global Body Line represents a radical departure from the previous Flexible Body Line and has resulted in greater efficiency, quality and production flexibility: more than 240 welding robots are employed on the Global Body Line at Altona compared with 104 on the old line.

"We have been building Toyotas in Australia for more than 40 years – longer than any country outside of Japan – and our latest investment shows our confidence in this nation’s future. It is our intention to grow the business, increase domestic market share and develop new export markets, so the logistics of manufacturing and shipping are vital to our efficient operation in Victoria," said Mr Okada, boldly adding, "I am confident that this is the best car ever built by Toyota in Australia." 

With the launch of the new VE Commodore not too far away now, along with the new Toyota Camry hitting dealership in August and with Aurion models to follow later in the fourth quarter of 2006, the large car market in Australia is predicted to lift as the hype that surrounds these vehicles tempts buyers back from the medium and small car segments. 

"We have a great opportunity with the new model Camry, which is the only 4-cylinder car built in Australia, and we believe the forthcoming Aurion will spark a revival in the large car segment," Toyota Australia's CEO, Mr Okada,concluded.