Toyota will drop the Celica and MR2 sports cars next year in a big overhaul of the brand’s model range for Europe.
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Toyota also will stop importing the Previa large minivan into Europe next year and introduce a next-generation RAV4 SUV this autumn.
But in a change of plans, Automotive News Europe reported, the next-generation Land Cruiser, due in 2006, will continue to be sold in Europe as a Toyota. The Japanese carmaker previously planned to badge the next-generation Land Cruiser as a Lexus, the Toyota luxury brand, as it does in the US.
Toyota insiders say the move is designed to narrow the Toyota range and increase the concentration of European-sourced models. The company has said it plans to sell 1.2 million Toyota and Lexus models in Europe by 2010 and build 70% of those vehicles in Europe.
Dropping the sports cars and the Previa also will help Toyota achieve the voluntary 140 grams-per-kilometre corporate CO2 emission level by 2009. The cars produce between 178g/km and 259g/km of CO2. Asian automakers have one year longer to reach the CO2 levels than European brands.
The Celica, MR2 and Previa are imported niche vehicles. In 2004 Toyota sold 2,875 MR2s, 6,627 Celicas and 5,445 Previas in Europe. Toyota’s best-selling model in Europe last year was the European-built Yaris, with more than 227,000 units.
“The Celica and MR2 are low-volume lines that have their main market in the US,” Toyota spokesman Scott Brownlee said. “In the US, the sports car role has been taken over by the Scion tC Coupe – but the Scion brand isn’t sold in Europe.”
But Toyota could potentially offer high-performance hybrids instead of conventional sports cars in Europe. Earlier this month in an interview with Automotive News Europe sister publication Automotive News, Ernest Bastien, Toyota’s vice president of US vehicle operations, suggested that a hybrid sports car could enable Toyota to offer both high performance and good fuel economy.
At the European launch of the Lexus RX400h hybrid premium SUV last week, Karl Schlicht, vice president of Lexus Europe, said hybrids would be a “brand-defining technology of Lexus.”
“The RX400h is the cornerstone of our strategy in establishing Lexus as a technology leader in the luxury market,” he said. “The GS450h [medium-premium sedan] will be launched next year and more hybrids will follow.”
