GoAutonews

John Mellor's
GoAuto news
TRD in lock-down
Continued from previous page
“You go back – here’s what we wanted to
achieve in going down this road, here’s what
we’ve achieved versus those objectives, have
we fulfi lled them, are we changing the mindset,
are we starting to be seen as inspirational and
emotional, do people recognise and understand
that Toyota now has a performance brand?
“That’s some of the refl ections we did back
in January when we locked a lot of people up
for quite a long period of time and one of the
decisions we changed, which we thought was an
appropriate decision at the outset, was in relation
to having a limited distribution network.
“One of (Toyota’s) biggest strengths is
our mass marketing capability and, in having
a limited distribution network, we were
inhibiting our ability as the factory, and our
dealers, to benefi t from the mass marketing.
“Now, we can include TRD in any
campaigns we’re having, we can include it in
(advertising) in the paper – you don’t have to
say ‘just available at these select dealers’. So
you can get that mass marketing happening
to help establish and land this brand the same
way we would with a normal Toyota product.”
Toyota has expanded TRD’s presence at
performance-type events to include drag racing,
drifting, sprintcars, stunt cars and Targa Tasmania
this year, whereas last year it was limited to the
successful Australian Rally Championship
program with Simon Evans and Neal Bates.
Mr Buttner confi rmed that the Yaris is a
contender to be the third TRD model.
But the Corolla has been eliminated because
TRD cannot get enough power out of Toyota’s
best-selling model – a scenario fi rst mooted
by GoAuto in November, when TRD was still
evaluating its Corolla options.
He said that engineers working with the
four-cylinder engine had fallen 20-25kW short
of an acceptable target for the competitive ‘Hot
Hatch’ market.
A wild 200kW 3.5-litre V6-engined ‘Blade’
model sold overseas is only made in lefthand
drive (the RHD Japanese market only
gets the 123kW 2.4-litre four-cylinder Blade)
and would therefore be too expensive to reengineer
given the limited numbers for TRD.
However, Mr Buttner left the door open
for the V6 Corolla to come to Australia as
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A PRIL 16, 2008 Page 13
TRD Aurion
a mainstream Toyota model because the
extra sales potential would cover the cost of
engineering it for RHD.
“We still haven’t locked in on a third (TRD)
model and we’re not hell-bent on whatever
time we go to market by,” he said.
“This is a fl exible program that will be
driven by the circumstances prevailing in
the marketplace at the time and how well the
brand is being established and embedded in the
psyche of the Australian consumer.
“We’re still going through our internal
deliberations and, frankly, we’re not hung up
on timing. Everyone keeps pushing for when
we will announce it and when it will be.
“I can’t see anything (coming out) this year.
I’d like to think we’ll have an announcement
before June.”
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