Toyota Motors South Africa has hinted at expanding its brand portfolio to include Daihatsu and the ultra-luxurious Century divisions at some stage.
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Fully owned by Toyota since 2016, Daihatsu had a prolonged local spell from the 1980s into the 2000s before departing the local market in March of 2015.
At the time distributed by the Imperial Group, its departure came about its renewed focus on the Japanese and South East Asian markets instead of previous strongholds such as Australia, South Africa and the United Kingdom.
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It did, however, continue to have an indirect presence in South Africa via the Toyota Avanza, known as the Xenia, the Terios sold as the Toyota Rush and more recently, the Ayla marketed as the Toyota Ayga.
Speaking at its annual State of the Motoring Industry (SOMI) conference on Thursday (12 February), Toyota South Africa Motors Senior Vice-President of Sales and Marketing, Leon Theron, said extracting more out of its small car specialist brand is a priority Toyota is looking into for South Africa.
For the moment, though, a guaranteed return is unknown.
“We would really like to get more involved with Daihatsu from a South African context and give us an affordable option as a brand we will defiantly be investing into in the future”, Theron said.
When Lexus isn’t enough
Reconfigured as a brand last year, the surprise mentioning of Century will see it rank above Lexus as Toyota’s most luxurious brand should it come to market.
Until now restricted to Japan, the brand unveiled its first SUV, the simply titled Century SUV, three years ago as an alternative to the Century sedan.
The latter having been the only Century vehicle from 1967 to 2023, and also the only Toyota to have ever used a V12 engine, the brand will soon expand to include a third model – a high-riding coupe crossover teased as a concept at the Tokyo Mobility Show last year.
“We will push really hard to get this brand into South Africa. [Century] is a very high-end-brand and volume is not a discussion here – it is not a brand we will push on volume. It is a bespoke [brand) that defines what we call the pinnacle of Japanese luxury,” Theron said.
Watch this space
As with Daihatsu, no official timeframe of Century launching in South Africa has been made.
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