The first of the second-generation Camry Solara coupes has rolled off the assembly line at at Toyota Motor Manufacturing Kentucky as company officials tout the car as the most American of any Toyota to date, Associated Press (AP) reported.
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Under a banner that read “The All-American Solara” and with the Neil Diamond song “America” playing in the background, a red Solara – with a red, white and blue bow on top – was unveiled during a ceremony, AP said.
The news agency said the car will be built only at the Georgetown plant and Toyota intends to build about 30,000 Solaras by the end of 2003 with 64,000 units are planned for 2004.
AP said that, technically, the car isn’t 100% American because it’s built on a Camry platform with Japanese-designed engine, transmission and drivetrain but, from planning to design to engineering to assembly, all phases of the Solara’s production have been done in the United States.
All previous Toyota products have been designed in Japan but a Toyota US official told Associated Press the company wanted to see just how independent its North American branch could be because those in the United States are more familiar with what works in the US car market.
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By GlobalData“It’s a milestone for North America,” the official reportedly told AP. “It gives us an opportunity to show Toyota what we really can do. It’s measurable. Any new model launch is a challenge. There are so many details to manage and so many issues to take care of. By having only North Americans doing it, they can really see what stage we are at in our development, to become more self-reliant.”
According to Associated Press, the car’s engineering, planning, technical and styling development was managed by Toyota Motor Manufacturing North America in Erlanger, Kentucky; Toyota Technical Centre in Ann Arbor, Michigan; Calty Design Research in Newport Beach, California; and Toyota Motor Sales USA in Torrance, near Los Angeles.
“We are trying to localise development,” another Toyota official tolf Associated Press. “If you’re doing the engineering in Japan, and trying to communicate with suppliers here in North America, it would be a very long-distance type of communication. By having engineering in the United States, we’re able to work more closely with our suppliers in designing the parts that they’re going to make.”
AP said the first-generation Solara debuted in autumn 1998 and was developed to target what Toyota calls “the sport specialty segment” of the car market. The new Solara will be sold only in North America, the report added.
This second generation model was 21 months in the development stage, the Associated Press report added.
