Global boss of Toyota, Akio Toyoda, made a secret visit to Altona ahead of yesterday’s Camry factory closure

TOYOTA workers saved their best quality until the very last cars, survey reveals.

The last Toyota Camry from the Altona production line in Melbourne gets a send-off by employees on Tuesday October 3, 2017. Picture: Supplied.

THE global head of Toyota, Akio Toyoda, made a top secret visit to the Camry factory in Altona in August to farewell 2500 workers.

But his final speech to staff yesterday came via satellite link as the last car rolled off the production line.

Mr Toyoda, a descendant of the founding family of the Japanese car giant, thanked workers for their efforts in the lead-up to the closure after an internal audit revealed the quality of Australian-made Camrys was better than any of the other seven factories around the world producing the same car — including Japan.

The chairman of Toyota Australia, Max Yasuda, said Mr Toyoda “wanted to meet with the people while the factory is still running, rather than a quiet factory”.

Toyota’s global boss Akio Toyoda visited the Altona factory in August but spoke to employees via satellite link during the send-off ceremony yesterday. Picture: Supplied.

“He went around the factory and talked to the people, expressing his appreciation. That itself was quite an emotional day,” Mr Yasuda told Australian media in an embargoed briefing last week ahead of yesterday’s closure.

Australia was the first country outside Japan where Toyota assembled vehicles, in 1963. But Australia is now also the first country Toyota has closed a mass-production factory anywhere in the world.

Toyota has previously sold a factory in the US jointly owned with General Motors, and closed a small facility in New Zealand that assembled cars from imported parts.

“Fundamentally once Toyota is in, there’s no word of pulling out,” said Mr Yasuda. “(Altona) was … the first time we made this kind of decision to pull out in such a big scale”.

Toyota customarily does not reveal the internal quality rankings of its factories, but Mr Yasuda said Altona had the best quality of any Camry factory in the world.

“The last audit was done at the beginning of this year, and we achieved the best ever quality levels by this audit,” said Mr Yasuda.

Despite leading up to a closure the Altona facility had finished on a high note, he said.

“I don’t know how (the factory workers) keep their motivation so high, to keep this performance going through to the end. Just amazing. It’s a fantastic achievement of our people,” said Mr Yasuda.

Toyota workers take photos of the last locally-made Camry. Picture: Supplied.

The Japanese executive revealed Toyota Australia explored the possibility of manufacturing the Corolla small car or RAV4 SUV instead of the Camry — but neither model sells in sufficient numbers to sustain local production.

At its peak in 1998 the Holden Commodore led the new-car market with 94,600 sales. Each of the past six years has been won by vehicles posting less than 45,000 sales: the Mazda3, Toyota Corolla and Toyota HiLux.

Mr Yasuda said Toyota wanted to ensure a factory closure of this scale “will never happen into the future”.

“We have so many factories around the world, just struggling,” he said. “But learning from what happened in Australia, we want to make sure that it would never happen again. So basic concept of never pulling out once we are in is still there.”

Workers celebrate the production of the 10,000th Australian-made Toyota in the late 1960s. Picture: Supplied.

In the video link to workers yesterday, Mr Toyoda said: “I would like to express my sincere appreciation again to you, our dedicated employees, our suppliers, our customers, the local community and government who have all supported Toyota’s manufacturing development in Australia.”

Holden will close its factory in Elizabeth near Adelaide in a fortnight, on October 20, turning the lights out on the Australian car manufacturing industry.

This reporter is on Twitter: @JoshuaDowling