Aussie export record

AT THE end of a tumultuous year, Toyota Australia is about to celebrate another milestone by becoming the first Australian car-maker to export 100,000 cars in a calendar year.

The company estimates that the record-breaking Camry will leave Melbourne aboard the ship ‘Positive Leader’ on Christmas Eve, bound – like the vast majority of Aussie-built Toyotas before it – for the Middle East.

Toyota estimates that its export total in 2008 will be another industry record of 101,563 cars compared with the previous record of 97,688 it set in 2007.

Locally, Toyota will sell about 42,000 Altona-built four-cylinder Camry and V6-engined Aurion models, which skews the company’s preferred balance of 50-50 in favour of the exports.

Nevertheless, Toyota Australia senior executive director of sales and marketing, David Buttner, says it is pleasing that the locally-built cars are so popular in the export markets.

Mr Buttner said that the company exports the cars to a total of 20 countries.

“This is Australia’s biggest automotive export program, generating $1.8 billion a year in export revenue,” he said.

“Exports are a vital part of Toyota’s well-balanced business model. We also produce more than 40,000 cars for the local market in addition to 100,000 four-cylinder engines for our domestic and export Camry sedans.”

Earlier this year, Toyota Australia celebrated the production milestone of 2.5 million vehicles, with the various generations of Camry accounting for more than 1.3 million of that total since the Altona plant opened 21 years ago.

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