“Volume won’t be a problem with this car based on our sales planning,” says Sean Hanley, Toyota’s Australian boss as he looks across to the right-hand drive Tundra pickup, the culmination of a five-year project.
Toyota calls this ute its ‘premium towing machine’ and it’s not hard to see why. With a rated towing capacity of 4.5 tonnes, it picks up where LandCruiser 300 and HiLux have left off. There’s been a long validation process and 280 customers and 20Toyota internal staff are in the process of a year-long trial, so this is yet to be a signed-off program.
When asked if he’s confident that the right-hand engineering, in partnership with Walkinshaw, will be up to scratch, he smiles confidently, leans in and says, “We’re certainly not doing this not to launch the car,” he chuckles.
It’s a project that has been made easier by the wealth of componentry shared with the LC300. The crucial ‘run, stop, turn’ items that would be
