Ford/Toyota Joint Venture UTE

[Wally]

This been posted yet?

http://www.smh.com.au/national/ute-b...1212-kpki.html

Ute beauty: Toyota, Ford race to reinvent a classicTOBY HAGON
December 13, 2009
AUSTRALIA invented the ute and now it's perfecting it for the world.

Australia's three remaining car makers – Ford, Toyota and Holden – are playing roles in developing next-generation utes for the world.

Toyota has revealed it will join Ford in developing a rugged ute to be sold around the world, exporting engineering and helping cement Australia as one of fewer than 20 countries that can design, engineer and produce cars.

The next generation of Australia's – and one of the world's – most popular utes, the Toyota Hilux, will undergo extensive testing and development locally as part of a plan to set Australia up as a four-wheel-drive centre of expertise.

A senior Toyota engineer recently in Australia said Australian engineers were being trained in Japan to develop the next Hilux ute that will arrive in about five years.

"Australia is still the most diverse and harsh environment we know. It is the benchmark for model development," said Toyota chief engineer Makato Arimoto, who is part of the product-planning department.

Ford Australia – which invented the first car-based ute in 1934 in answer to a farmer's desire for a car that could be driven to church on Sunday and take pigs to market on Monday – is leading the development of the next-generation Ranger.

The longest-running name plate in Australia could switch to an imported car as part of the "one Ford" policy that aims to end cars for individual markets.

Last year Holden was on the verge of exporting its Commodore ute to the US, a program that came undone when parent company General Motors slid towards bankruptcy. Some within Holden are still hopeful of reviving an export program for the ute that has created a new sports-ute segment.