Following the demise of the Australian ute market, automakers try to get our buddies down below hooked on full-size pickups. Toyota is the most recent firm pushing its truck onto an unsuspecting populace. It is transport over 300 Tundras and changing them to right-hand-drive for a pilot program. Nevertheless, it is forbidding homeowners, who’ve paid for the vans, to submit about them on social media.
The information comes from Australia’s Drive, which uncovered the principles for homeowners of the take a look at automobiles within the “Tundra Insiders Program.” Homeowners shopping for one of many 300 vans should conform to let Toyota examine them for any points that may crop up, however they’re additionally below stringent orders to not submit in regards to the vans on social media or to let any media shops assessment them.
In a letter to homeowners, Toyota says they need to “keep away from any remark in regards to the Tundra on social media, and chorus from mentioning or discussing the lease settlement, or the Tundra itself, with any media shops.”
“Members are prohibited from loaning their Tundra to any motoring press, different journalists or any influencers/bloggers for assessment or protection functions,” it continues.
It is comprehensible that Toyota would need to investigate cross-check the vans. Toyota has famously rigorous requirements for high quality, and Australia is an untested surroundings for the Tundra. The 300 vans will probably be shipped as LHD automobiles, then transformed to RHD by Walkinshaw Automotive Group, in line with Drive. It is unknown whether or not factory-finish mirror-image dashboards and consoles even exist, of if these conversions will probably be a bit extra cobbled collectively.
The social media blackout is a little more peculiar. In spite of everything, as Drive factors out, these vans will probably be pushed on public roads for all to see. Maybe Toyota is cautious of the message distortion that may usually occur on such platforms. Nevertheless, 300 vans and all of the folks they arrive in touch with are lots of people to corral, so we suspect some data will discover its approach out.
Australia was as soon as distinctive in that it had a thriving marketplace for utes, car-based unibody vans just like the Holden Commodore and Ford Falcon. We knew related automobiles stateside because the Chevy El Camino, Ford Ranchero and Dodge Rampage however whereas they died out right here within the 80s they continued nicely into the twenty first century in Oz.
Nevertheless, with the shuttering of GM’s Holden and Ford’s Australian manufacturing base, these automobiles went the way in which of the dodo. The topselling automobiles in Australia are the midsize Toyota Hilux and Ford Ranger. So now the U.S. Massive Three are stepping in to unleash 6,000-pound full-sizers on the Aussie market. The Chevy Silverado and Ram 1500 have already made landfall; the Ford F-150 is arriving quickly. If Toyota’s program proves constructive, the Tundra might comply with.