Mini Toyota FJ LandCruiser, seven-seat RAV4, Celica, next-gen Tarago: All the cars Toyota needs and the ones it should axe from Camry and Fortuner to Corolla Cross and bZ4X | Opinion

Toyota makes a lot of different cars, but we want more. Where’s the small off-roader? A baby LandCruiser? Where’s the reborn Celica? And where’s the new-gen Tarago? Don’t even get me started on the missing electric cars, either…

You’d think that for the most successful and biggest selling car company in the world Toyota wouldn’t have a single gap in its line-up. 

We can forgive the likes of Subaru or Mitsubishi for having missing pieces, but Toyota? Nope, I’m not buying it. 

Toyota has more than 22 models on sale in Australia and it could probably discontinue half of them and still hold onto the No.1 spot. It’s easy: lose Corolla Cross, same with bZ4X, put Fortuner out of its misery, same with 86 - it was good but the party’s over, Camry is part of a dying species in mid-size sedans, Supra now exists for Supercars but it should go, Tundra is prohibitively expensive, same for the Yaris and the C-HR was never going to work, was it?

That leaves HiLux, RAV4, Kluger, Prado, Corolla, Camry, Kluger, LandCruiser in both 300 and 70 Series forms and the Yaris Cross. More models than most brands and the combined annual sales of them all is about 210,000, which would still make it far and way the biggest-selling car brand in Australia.

That makes it easier to see what essential models might be missing. 

A mini LandCruiser is one.

We’re talking a Suzuki Jimny rival and if the rumours are true the LandCruiser FJ is on the cards for Toyota, with the brand not planning to use the TGNA platform that underpins the Prado and LandCruiser 300 but the IMV-O platform used in emerging markets.

Next is one gap in the line-up so obvious that before anything else it should be filed — a people mover. The family favourite Tarago was retired in 2019 and replaced by the Granvia, which while plush was more airport transfer shuttle than practical suburban people mover that could rival the Kia Carnival.

The Granvia’s sales were woeful and last year only 112 were sold, compared to 10,080 Kia Carnivals. The Granvia was the wrong choice and Toyota should have brought in the Alphard people mover, which already had an importer fan following in Australia despite it never being sold here. It would be hard for Toyota to sit and watch Kia have the entire national people mover market all to itself and it would be wise to get Alphard here and start stealing some sales back. Should it be renamed a Tarago? Sure why not, just hurry up and get it here.

Finally, can we talk about a two-door Toyota sportscar that isn’t a BMW? Don’t get me wrong, I love the Supra. It looks delicious and it’s great to drive, but I think Toyota is big enough to do its own sportscar. Again the rumour mill says a reborn Celica is coming. A mid-engined 300kW petrol four-cylinder powered, 1.2m tall GR Celica with a strange-looking windscreen. I’m here for it.

So that’s just three cars Toyota’s sorely missing from a line-up that’s too fat. Don’t even get me started on how Toyota needs a mid-sized SUV with seven seats — A RAV4 7 — to compete with the Mitsubishi Outlander and Kia Sorento.  And then there’s the complete lack of electric vehicles, but that’s another opinion piece.