Toyota’s Race to the Indian Market
Toyota Kirloskar Motors displayed modified versions of its Liva and Etios at the Auto Expo 2012
Toyota Racing Development (TRD) had made several modifications to the Liva and the Etios; body kits, modified bumpers and bucket seats, among others. Engines, though, remain the same as of now. Toyota has displayed the cars to get feedback and TRD is likely to set up shop in India later this year.
In an exclusive interview with Ashish K. Mishra, TRD’s global president, Masanobu Kawase chats about the division’s India entry and why it makes a lot of sense now. Masanobu doesn’t speak very good English but we got a translator.
Q: How old are you?
A: How old do I look? (Maybe 40 years old). Oh, I am way above 50. You know this company [TRD] was established in the year 1954. I was born the same year.
Q: What’s the philosophy of TRD?
A: Well, as far as the company’s philosophy is concerned, our vision is that we want to use technology and the skills that we have to open up a future for our vehicles.
Q: There’s not a lot of motor sport activity happening in India right now. I mean these are early days. What do you think?
A: I would like to say that basically there are two types of cars, so they can be divided in two broad categories. One is that cars are used for practical purposes so moving from one point to another. And the other category is when a person rides a car just for the fun of it. India’s market right now does belong to the first category of cars where people use the car as a utility to go from one spot to another. But as can be seen in developed countries like US and even in Japan for example, as the car market becomes more and more mature, there is also the development of a category which starts looking at a car as more than just a utility vehicle. So something in which they need to have a bit more fun. So it is a general trend.
In order to promote faster maturity of a market, what we do is introduce such cars by designing and developing them and also build other support activities like promotion of motor racing. This helps in the natural evolution of the market. In order to give it a higher speed of maturity, so that is what we are looking at. I think India is right now at the brink of seeing that market.
Q: When can we expect cars like these to come into India? I mean how serious is the attempt from TRD?
A: To be honest, right now what we have done is we have taken both these cars to Japan. They are made in India, you know. So we are testing the cars and we have added some accessories to them, done some modifications. And these cars will be in India next month for testing. So all I can say is, very soon.
