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Toyota Dons NASCAR Racing Gear

Race on Sunday, Sell on Monday

By Joe Benton
ConsumerAffairs.com

January 26, 2005
When the green flag drops for the Daytona 500 one year from now more than one Toyota Camry is likely to be racing in the field.

Toyota is signing up for the old Detroit sales ploy -- win on Sunday and sell on Monday.

While Toyota plans to join both the NASCAR Nextel Cup and Busch series in 2007, the Japanese automaker is looking for more than a handful of checkered flags.

Despite repeated Toyota denials, the company is turning up the heat in the U.S. market in an all-out effort to drive sales and replace General Motors as the world’s number one automaker.

Toyota sales gains suggest the automaker could well surpass GM late this year or early in 2007.

While the plain vanilla Toyota Camry is hardly the sort of track pounding beast that fires the loyalty ardent NASCAR fans, the family sedan is the best selling car in the U.S.

Painting a number on the roof and sending the sedan out to compete with the country’s most famous motor racing stars and makes is almost certain to increase the Camry’s and Toyota’s popularity.

Toyota officials concede the move will help their company become a stronger brand in the U.S. "Basically, the reason is to connect and reach the very vocal and enthusiastic and loyal NASCAR fan base," said Les Unger, national motorsports manager at Toyota Motor Sales USA. "We're becoming ever more ingrained in the fabric of the country."

In 2004, Toyota entered the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series, a move that many fans and experts saw as a prelude to the company entering the Nextel Cup.

Toyota has hired all American racers to run their new team. Bill Davis Racing, Michael Waltrip Racing and an all-new Team Red Bull Racing will run the first Toyota Camry racecars in NASCAR and Busch series events.

Toyota's U.S. sales increased almost 10% in 2005 and should rise again this year with the newly redesigned Camry. The company also is expected to start production later this year of a larger, more powerful Tundra truck at a new plant in San Antonio.

Toyota officials concede the company will probably need several years to win a Nextel Cup race but promise they have the patience and resources to eventually take a Nextel Cup checkered flag.

The Japanese automaker is showing the same patience and resources in a relentless march to the front in the automobile producing world, where Toyota is likely to become number one long before winning a stock car race in the U.S.

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