Motoring,page
AMAZING to think that Toyota i s celebrating i ts 50th anniversary of sales in Britain.
Starting from humble origins with a few local dealers importing cars from Japan, it now has two factories here: at Burnaston, Derbyshire, and the engine plant on Deeside, building cars for the UK and export.
At a party with company bosses this week, I was astonished at how far car technology and styling has come in five decades from the very first Corona and Corolla models. Interior trim is where great strides have been made, too.
Toyota had a modest introduction to the UK market in 1965 with a four-car stand at that year’s motor show. Now it’s sold almost three million vehicles here.
A small South London family firm selling mainly motorcycles called Pride And Clark became the first UK importer and distributor, after businessman John Pride visited the Far East to see the developing Japanese car industry for himself.
Toyota noted: ‘His faith in Toyota was shared by a handful of retailers who set up the first Toyota showrooms with just a single model line, the Corona, followed by the Corolla in 1966.’ The name Toyota (GB) Ltd was adopted in 1967 and by 1980 200,000 cars had been sold.
Just nine years later, the UK was chosen as the firm’s European manufacturing centre with the Burnaston and Deeside plants coming on stream in 1992.
The first British-built Toyota was the Carina E, predecessor of today’s Avensis. More than £2 billion has been invested here in technology, skills and jobs with spin-off work for more than 200 suppliers.
Britain is also the base for Toyota’s first hybrid vehicle manufacturing centre in Europe and has built the Auris Hybrid models since 2010.
Already this year Toyota has launched the new Avensis and Auris — built at Burnaston — and will soon begin selling the first of its Mirai hydrogen-fuel cell cars.
TO HELP mark the half century, I took one of its high-tech British-built Auris petrol-electric hybrids for a leisurely spin up to the Cotswolds.
It’s a practical and frugal family car with plenty of space in the boot for lots of luggage and took our family of four in comfort and ease.
The version I drove was a Touring Sports estate in a fetching white pearl, powered by a smooth 1.8- litre petrol engine with continuous variable transmission (CVT) linked to an 80 bhp electric motor.
Top speed is 112 mph, though acceleration from rest to 62 mph is a sedate 11.2 seconds.
The new Auris has been restyled i nsi de and out and l ooks much sharper.
The basic road price is £25,545 though those little extras — ‘touch and go’ touchscreen navigation at £750, pearlescent paint at £650 — bumps that up to £26,945.
The car also has some handy safety features, such as lane departure warning, which helps give you a nudge if you are drifting across the lane, or nodding off at the wheel.
It comes with loads of kit as standard, including dual zone automatic air-conditioning, dusks ensing headlights, heated electrically adjustable mirrors and dark-tinted privacy glass.
Mine was also fitted with a skyview panoramic roof.
But fuel economy is where it really scores, averaging 70.6 mpg, thanks to power switching between electric and petrol power as the car regenerates i ts own batteries.
More power to the people!