Toyota Tundra pick-up confirmed for Australia
This enormous American ute is locked in for a place in Australian showrooms, giving drivers a massive new option.
Aussies will soon have more hulking American pick-ups to dodge.
But rather than an American brand with a V8 engine, the latest newcomer – the Tundra – wears a Toyota badge and comes with hybrid power.
The Tundra was this week given the tick of approval by Toyota head office as part of a world first project for Toyota that allows the car to effectively be rebuilt in Australia as part of a remanufacturing process.
Describing it as a “momentous day”, Toyota Australia vice president sales, marketing and franchise operations, Sean Hanley, says years of evaluation, testing and validation has finally paid off.
“Tundra is go. Our parent company has given Toyota Australia official approval to launch Tundra to retail customers in Australia. Tundra Limited will go on sale from mid-November.”
The Tundra gives the Japanese car maker another entrant in the heavy-duty four-wheel drive market – and a load lugging alternative to the LandCruiser.
Being a commercial vehicles it will not attract luxury car tax that adds thousands to SUV rivals.
Expected to sell from about $150,000, the Tundra will go head-to-head with the RAM 1500, Chevrolet Silverado and Ford F-150.
Like that trio, the made-in-America Tundra arrives in Australia with the steering wheel on the left.
It then undergoes a comprehensive re-engineering project that sees it stripped back to metal and converted to right-hand drive.
The comprehensive conversion is performed by the Walkinshaw Group, which was previously responsible for Holden Special Vehcles, creating the fastest V8 Holdens ever.
“The go-ahead for this program is the culmination of an extensive development project … that has taken six years,” said Hanley.
“It confirms that right-hand drive Tundra meets Toyota’s global standards for equality, durability and reliability. These are the same standards that apply to vehicles produced 100 per cent in the Toyota ecosystem.”
It’s the first time Toyota has approved such a program.
“This announcement is the first time – in fact anywhere in the world – that we at Toyota have taken a vehicle built in a country that’s not Japan, exported it to a third country, re-engineered it with a local partner, undertaken final assembly in a non-Toyota factory and sold it as 100 per cent Toyota branded vehicle.”
Hanley says the Australian Tundra “sets a new benchmark” for switching the steering wheel from the left to the gist.
”The new Tundra is far more than a simple right-hand drive conversion. Anyone who refers to the right-hand drive Tundra as a mere conversion is massively undercalling what has been achieved here.”
The Tundra will initially be sold as a Limited but in 2025 a more luxurious – and expensive – variant will double the offering.
Beneath the skin is a 3.5-litre V6 twin turbo engine matched to a hybrid system. But the hybrid is more about providing V8-beating levels of performance, with a full 326kW and 790Nm on offer. It uses about 11.7 litres of premium unleaded per 100km.
The Tundra also creates potential headaches for Toyota with the imminent introduction of New Vehicle Efficiency Standards (NVES) that stipulate average CO2 emissions across a vehicle fleet.
“We know we’ve still got a big challenge in front of us with heavy vehicles and we’re still working on our plan on how that will look from (20) 27 onwards,” said Hanley.
However, Toyota appears to be in a better position than its prime American rivals, especially RAM and Chevrolet that aren’t yet known for their fuel efficient vehicles.
Not that Toyota is forecasting big sales.
Hanley said justifying right-hand drive production from the factory would require at least 12,000 sales annually and that the company is expecting far fewer than that.
“The segment’s not big enough. I don’t think so (it will ever get to that point).”
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