Cressida Deluxe $3200 cheaper

Press, 19 November 1982, Page 18

Cressida Deluxe $3200 cheaper

BEHIND the WHEEL with

Peter Greenslade

Last year when Toyota New Zealand, Ltd. launched its up-market Cressida GL, its Thames assembly plant, where the car is put together, employed about 520 people, about 40 per cent of whom were women. As those people were drawing more than $5 million in wages each year, Toyota N.Z. (Thames), Ltd, was the largest single employer in the area and it seems almost superfluous to add that the townspeople were displaying more than a passing interest in proposals for restructuring the New Zealand motor industry. Now that the Industries Development Commission has made public its draft report on the New Zealand Motor Vehicle Industry Development Plan and the industry itself — not necessar-

ily coincidentally — is experiencing the effects of a severe downturn, it is perhaps significant that Toyota has just announced a Cressida Deluxe version. which retains most of the features of the GL but costs $3200 less than the luxury version launched in May last year. In case any readers have not already guessed, this Deluxe version, like the GL, is being assembled at Toyota’s Thames plant. It seems, therefore, that someone is alive to the social consequences the slackening demand for cars could have on a town the size of Thames.

The Cressida is the largest Japanese car assembled in New Zealand. At the time of the GL launch, Toyota executives told motoring journalists in Thames for the occasion that it was planned to assemble 2000 Cressidas a

year. Hearsay has it that the GL has not come up to expectations from the sales viewpoint. The price might have had something to do with that. .At launch date the five-speed manual gearbox GL sold for $17,750 and the automatic version, fitted with the three-speed AisinWarner system, cost $18,500. Today the manual version costs slightly in excess of $2OOO more while the automatic’s price tag has increased by roughly $1950. Although the GL versions are lavishly appointed, perhaps the quadrophonic stereo radio-cassette player being the most exciting feature of these cars, they are among the more expensive fourcylinder 2-litre cars in New Zealand and rather lacking in character when compared with some competitors. The new Cressida Deluxe

models are priced at $16,553 for the manual and $17,257 for the automatic. The manual in this case is a fourspeed car. Externally, there is little to distinguish the new car from the more highly specified GL. However, the interior changes are more striking. There is a push-button radio instead of the stereo-cassette sound system and winders replace the electrically-oper-ated window system of the GL.

Seats are covered in a woollen tweed fabric and the headlining is of vinyl, while there is woollen loop-pile carpet on the floor.

The 2-litre overhead camshaft engine, designated the 21R, is the same as in the GL version. The new model is 30kg lighter than the GL

Other features are a sixposition tilt-adjustable steering column, halogen headlights, twin remote-con-trolled door mirrors, electri-cally-operated aerial, lumbar support seat back for the driver and an illuminated entry system. In totality, the Cressida Deluxe would appear to be tangible evidence of a desire on the part of Toyota New Zealand, Ltd, to keep the cash registers ringing in Thames. Taking into account the state of the car market, it seems fair to say that it is also a tangible effort on the part of the company to popularise the Cressida itself.

One could perhaps be excused for asking if other local assemblers have plans to follow suit? Perhaps their position is rather different. Redundant workers tend to get lost in the crowds of Auckland and the Hutt Valley — at least in the meantime. In places like Thames they tend to stand out as individuals who are on Christian-name terms with shopkeepers on Main Street.