{"id":3538,"date":"2012-07-23T20:20:24","date_gmt":"2012-07-23T20:20:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.vanrental.co.uk\/vanblog\/?p=3538"},"modified":"2012-07-30T13:43:32","modified_gmt":"2012-07-30T13:43:32","slug":"toyota-to-sell-rebadged-psa-vans-in-europe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.vanrental.co.uk\/vanblog\/archives\/3538","title":{"rendered":"Toyota To Sell Rebadged PSA Vans In Europe"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Toyota

Toyota Hiace panel van - discontinued in the UK from 2012<\/p><\/div>\n

Back in January, I lamented the passing of the Toyota Hiace<\/a>, puzzling over why Toyota had claimed to have no suitable Euro 5 engines, when clearly it did.<\/p>\n

The answer may now be clear — the Japanese company will be selling rebadged PSA Peugeot\u00a0Citro\u00ebn vans in Europe from mid-2013. The new van will be based on the\u00a0Citro\u00ebn Dispatch \/ Peugeot Expert — near enough a direct replacement for the Hiace.<\/p>\n

The agreement also includes collaboration on next generation vehicles which are to be produced by PSA Peugeot Citro\u00ebn.\u00a0 The collaboration is expected to last beyond 2020.<\/p>\n

Toyota Motor Europe will participate in the development and industrial investment costs for the next generation product. There are no plans for the two companies to enter into capital tie-ups or joint production.<\/p>\n

Toyota Motor Europe President and CEO, Didier Leroy:<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Light Commercial Vehicle segment is an important one for us in many markets throughout Europe. By joining forces with PSA Peugeot Citro\u00ebn, we have found a good solution for our loyal customers following the recent discontinuation of our own Hiace model.\u00a0 We already enjoy a successful joint-venture partnership with PSA Peugeot Citro\u00ebn in the small car segment and they are a leader in the European light commercial vehicle market, with a solid reputation for quality and versatility.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

As mentioned above, PSA and Toyota already collaborate in the small car segment — the Peugeot 107, Citro\u00ebn C1 and Toyota Aygo are all the same car.<\/p>\n

Not the real Hiace<\/strong><\/p>\n

The tie-up probably makes sense for Toyota, as it will no longer have to produce a separate version of the Hiace for European markets.<\/p>\n

The bonneted Hiace model (pictured above) that was sold in European markets is a special European design — the standard Hiace is a cabover configuration (here’s a picture<\/a> on Toyota’s Australian website). This model is the ‘real’ Hiace and sells well in Asia, the Middle East and Africa but is not acceptable in Europe — as far as I can tell, because it doesn’t comply with our crash test requirements (but I stand ready to be corrected).<\/p>\n

Update: <\/strong>The European model Toyota Hiace was built at Toyota’s Ovar factory in Portgual.\u00a0According to this article on Just-Auto.com<\/a>, just 152 have been built so far this year and only 304 were built in 2011. It looks like the time had come for the Euro Hiace to make a dignified exit.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Toyota will start selling a rebadged Peugeot Expert \/ Citroen Jumpy van in European markets from mid-2013, as an extension of the existing collaboration between PSA Peugeot Citroen and Toyota.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[8],"tags":[120,1510,14,288,567,1150,1151],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vanrental.co.uk\/vanblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3538"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vanrental.co.uk\/vanblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vanrental.co.uk\/vanblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vanrental.co.uk\/vanblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vanrental.co.uk\/vanblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3538"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.vanrental.co.uk\/vanblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3538\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3552,"href":"https:\/\/www.vanrental.co.uk\/vanblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3538\/revisions\/3552"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vanrental.co.uk\/vanblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3538"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vanrental.co.uk\/vanblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3538"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vanrental.co.uk\/vanblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3538"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}