Category: Toyota

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TOYOTA MR2 1987-2006

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2000 Toyota MR2 Spyder

Toyota 86 and its close cousin the Subaru BRZ, not to forget the evergreen Mazda MX-5, show there’s still a place for affordable sportscars in Australia. To be honest we would rather spend time in any of them than join the craze for pickup trucks that are clogging our roads at the moment. Which brings up thoughts of owning an older Toyota sports machine that can be bought for as little as $2000 on the used car market. The pure Toyota MR2 – a rear-engined two-seat machine that’s a delight… Read more

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TOYOTA CAMRY AND AURION 2006 – 2016

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2014 Toyota Camry Hybrid

Toyota Camry is no longer built in Australia because the Altona, Melbourne factory was closed down in October 2017. An all-new fully imported Camry replaced the Australian one at that time. The stylish new 2018 Camry created a lot of buyer interest and already many Camry owners have traded in their cars on it. Meaning dealers may have an oversupply of used Camrys and are keen to drop prices to shift them. No promises, though. Toyota Camry has long been a major player here, first arriving in 1983 as a… Read more

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2018 TOYOTA LANDCRUISER PRADO KAKADU

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For the 2018 season Toyota has upgraded its Prado range, with a facelift and tail tuck, a revised interior and additional infotainment and safety technology. Our test vehicle was the LandCruiser Prado toplne model, the Kakadu. Not cheap at $84,490 but do you get a substantial amount of vehicle for your money. And the price has been trimmed by $1121 compared to the model it has just superseded. STYLING The new grille is big and bold with broad vertical bars flanked by restyled headlamps (bi-LED on GXL, VX and our… Read more

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BUSINESS AS USUAL FOR BIG-SELLING CAMRY

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The end of the Australian automobile construction industry over the past 18 months is likely to have differing effects on each of the three affected companies. Ford has bitten the bullet and discontinued the Falcon while Holden is gambling on its loyal buyers moving to a German-built Commodore. By contrast the switch from locally-produced to imported Toyota Camrys is likely to be seamless given our feeling that a fair proportion of current owners aren’t even aware that their car was built at the company’s Altona, Melbourne plant. New Camry comes… Read more

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2017 TOYOTA 86 SPECIAL EDITION

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In a world that’s moving at breakneck speed a five-year old car like the Toyota 86 needs a serious freshen-up to keep it in the minds of potential buyers. A clever marketing move is the introduction of limited editions – not ‘special’ editions which can be moved off the showroom floors in volume and soon fade from the mind. Limited editions take on an aura of exclusivity hence the Toyota LE. Only 60, all in a wild orange shade, came Downunder a couple of months back. We’ve just spent a… Read more

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STYLISH NEW TOYOTA CAMRY

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Out with the old, in with the new. New Toyota Camry is most certainly an eye opener when compared with its honourable ancestors. Sadly the Camry is no longer made in Australia, it now comes from Japan. The build quality on the ones we have seen to date is every bit as good as what we have seen coming out of the Altona, Melbourne factory for the past 20 years. Let us jump straight to style because, believe it or not, that’s what people will be talking about in the… Read more

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‘HI 5’ FOR PICK-UP WITH A TOUCH OF LUX

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With global diplomacy playing out like a nuclear-charged game of chess, it’s good to know Australia is holding out the hand of friendship to some unlikely corners of the world. Toyota Australia engineers devoted six years and more than 650,000 kilometres in a wide variety of conditions to make sure the latest Hilux ute was up to standard for Australian and other regions, such as South Africa, Latin America, the Middle East and Russia, with rugged conditions. Toyota says Australia is the ‘spiritual home’ of the new Hilux and the… Read more

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TOYOTA FJ CRUISER 2011 – 2016

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Toyota FJ Cruiser is a tribute to the legendary Toyota FJ 40 LandCruiser first seen in Australia almost 60 years back. The original was a rough ’n’ tough old-style 4WD whereas the new one was launched here in March 2011 is much easier to live with, though still a lot more capable off-road than most people realise. Our launch took place five years after the FJ Cruiser had been introduced in the US of A. Many Aussies had seen it over there, or in many pics in local 4WD magazines,… Read more

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TOYOTA AVENSIS VERSO 2001 – 2010

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2001 Toyota Avensis Verso

You would go a long way to find a more versatile passenger vehicle than the Toyota Avensis, a seven-seat people-mover that drives more like a car than a van or SUV. When launched in December 2001 Toyota told us it hoped the Avensis would appeal to the many people using 4WD vehicles around the suburbs. That appeal was a failure, Toyota apparently not realising that drivers like to be seen in rough ’n’ tough SUVs and 4WDs and consider vehicles like Avensis to be rather sissy. However, those who are… Read more

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BOOST FOR KLUGER BIG-TIME

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Nondescript would be a good way to describe the Toyota Kluger when it emerged 14 years ago. Then, the mid-size sports utility vehicle sheepishly stood between the RAV4, Toyota’s cute compact SUV, and the Japanese company’s superhero, the all conquering Land Cruiser. Not any more. The Kluger has since muscled in on the big wagons to join stablemate Prado and take up a premium position among the seven-seater crowd. There have been about 140,000 sales since the first-generation model arrived. Since 2008, it has topped 10,000 sales a year and… Read more