Imports add to Toyota’s model range

Press, 16 May 1985, Page 33

Imports add to Toyota’s model range

BEHIND the WHEEL with

Peter Greenslade

Toyota New Zealand, Ltd, will be concentrating its local assembly factories on its Corolla, Corona and Cressida passenger cars and light commercial vehicles in future.

Taking advantage of the Government’s motor industry plan announced last December, it will round out its model range with imported, completely built up vehicles, notably the four 7 wheel drive Landcruiser, which will be marketed as a lavishly equipped long wheelbase station waggon, a more utilitarian two door short wheelbase version, and has a cab and chassis on which the purchaser can tailor the body to personal requirements. The station waggon is powered by a petrol engine, but there is a diesei engine option available in the case of the other models. The company also proposes to tackle Subaru head on in the specialised four wheel drive recreational market with the 1.5 litre Tercel station waggon and also pitch in for a share of the people carrier market with the 2-litre Tarago luxury waggon.

The sporting sector of the market is not being ignored. The fuel-injected 2.8 litre Supra, a smart, closecoupled four seater coupe, and the somewhat revolutionary mid-engined MR2, powered by Toyota’s 1600 cu cm twin overhead camshaft engine, which is also fuelinjected, will be imported in limited numbers.

Although the Toyota range in New Zealand now

covers just about every market segment, the company has taken the Government at its word and has carefully planned a degree of rationalisation into it that, so far, has not been accomplished by any other local assembler-importer. The engines and the other running gear used substantially in the completely built up vehicles are the same as that used in the locally assembled Toyota passenger car range. This means that Toyota dealers will be able to fully support the completely built up vehicles in the New Zealand range with Toyota New Zealand’s parts and service. Toyota’s national parts centre in Palmerston North already holds stocks of routine maintenance parts and is now receiving supplies of minor accident repair parts for the Japanese assembled vehicles the company is marketing. Body panels which might be needed in the case of more extensive accident

damage will be air freighted from Japan initially and should be available within three or four weeks of ordering. Toyota’s marketing strategy was announced in Queenstown last week by the company’s chief executive, Mr Bob Field, and sales and marketing manager, Mr Jack Wills. The occasion was the press launch of the 1985 Landcruiser range in which 10 new models were driven from Queenstown to the Moonlight Lodge on the 64,000 acre Ben Lomond high country sheep station. This trip, which took the party through an area rich in goldmining history, involved some 30 river crossings each way for the spectacular single lane track into the lodge follows the line of Moke Creek from its source, Moke Lake, and Moonlight Creek, which runs into the Shotover River. The fact that the 10 I>andcruisers accomplished more than 600 river crossings between them on the round trip without a hitch is probably testimony enough to their four wheel drive capability, but the Moonlight track itself was exceptionally slippery following overnight rain and it is probably fair to say that the journey is one that should not be undertaken by inexperienced or timorous drivers, and certainly not in anything other than a robust four wheel drive vehicle. The track in to the Moonlight Lodge is as spectacular as the scenery. The lodge was built 11 years ago as a tourist resort, but the venture did not get off the ground. Since those days, Ben Lomond Station has changed hands and the

owners, Kevin and Shirley Roy, have gone into partnership with a leading Queenstown tourist operator, Mr Ross Marett, with the intention of running half-day excursions from Queenstown to the lodge. The plan is to bring tourists in by four wheel drive vehicles. They will have lunch at the lodge and then be flown out by helicopter, which in turn will bring in another half-day party which will be driven out in the four wheel drive vehicles. While some of the press party elected to be flown part of the way back to Queenstown by helicopter, I decided to cover that part of the return journey, the most difficult section by far, with Mr Marett in the little Tercel station waggon. Obviously an accomplished off-road driver, Mr Marett tackled the spinetingling ascents and descents with sublime confidence and, even though the Tercel was fitted with road tyres, he demonstrated its superb traction on the sharp inclines and in the river crossings rather disdainfully and in much the same way as one drives to the neighbourhood corner store to buy a loaf of bread. The Tercel was a most impressive little station waggon and the same could be said of the other completely built up vehicles I sampled at the Landcruiser press launch.

In choosing its particular path now that motor industry guidelines have been laid down, Toyota New Zealand, Ltd, has demonstrated a degree of maturity that is perhaps much greater than one would expect It is a pointer to the direction some other local assemblers

would have been wiser to follow.

Mr Field, alluding to the tender system which came into effect recently as a direct result of the motor industry plan, said: “We are concerned that several other completely built up tenderers appear to be concentrating on high priced exotic vehicles which, we believe, will quickly lead to an oversupply of luxury cars in the $50,000 to $150,000 range.

“If this projection is correct it could have a destabilising effect on the used car market for traditionally premium priced exotics. In fact, our dealers have already been warned of a pending collapse in used car prices for the exclusive European marques which are being traded on the new Cressida.”

The long and the short of that is, that people who have bought some of the higher priced and relatively scarce European cars as an investment are likely to discover that their investments have turned sour. Dealers are almost notoriously reluctant to trade in cars when the deal involves a new one plus cash in the

pocket for the client. They will be even more reluctant to entertain deals of that nature when they know that the expensive trade-in is going to sit in their showrooms or on their used ear lots for months on end. The sooner New Zealanders realise that a modern, rare and expensive car is, unlike real estate, not an appreciating asset the bet-

ter. Motor industry people other than Mr Field have also issued warnings. There are indications that some folk have already heeded the warnings. It would be a shame if blame was attached to the more responsible people in the motor industry by the folk who do get their fingers burnt. The basic prices for Toyota’s new range of imported completely built up vehicles is: Tercel $23,000, Tarago (five speed manual) $37,500, (four speed automatic) $40,000, Celica Supra (five speed manual) $50,000, (four speed automatic) $52,500, Landcruiser Hi Lux (cab and chassis) $15,400 to (diesel double cab) $27,000, Landcruiser (short wheelbase hardtop) $33,000 to (highroof station waggon) $53,000.