Beware, Ram 1500 and Chevrolet Silverado! Is Toyota planning to convert the 2022 Toyota Tundra to right-hand drive for Australia?

Toyota Australia has opened a vehicle conversion centre in Melbourne’s west, but is it capable of converting left-hand drive models, like the Tundra truck, to right-hand drive?

US-market pickup trucks like the RAM 1500 and Chevrolet Silverado are doing big business in Australia right now and Toyota’s local arm knows it.

The Japanese carmaker’s hulking third-generation Tundra recently made its debut in the US and Toyota Australia is actively considering bringing it here.

However, despite opening a high-tech conversion facility at its new Centre of Excellence on the former manufacturing site in Altona, Victoria, the chances of left- to right-hand-drive vehicle conversion by Toyota Australia are low.

The conversion centre is an assembly line for HiLux ute models shipped to Australia from the Thailand factory that are fitted with bespoke components such as bullbars, recovery points, bash plates and more for the flagship HiLux Rogue and Rugged X variants.

Speaking to journalists at the opening of the new facility, Toyota Australia product planning and development general manager Rod Ferguson ruled out local conversion by the company.

“We certainly don’t have plans to do left- to right-hand drive. In fact, we don’t actually have that capability,” he said at the Centre’s opening.

However, Mr Ferguson left the door wide open for an external operation to do the conversions for them.

“It’s possible. Purely in this facility we don’t, and within our capability we don’t. The only way we would ever achieve something like that would be through some sort of a partnership or arrangement at the moment,” he said.

Both the RAM 1500 and Chevrolet Silverado are remanufactured to right-hand drive in Melbourne’s south-east by Walkinshaw Automotive Group. It is the most successful US truck converter in Australia, but there are other smaller operators such as Performax, SCD Remanufactured Vehicles and more.

Mr Ferguson said Toyota Australia had not ruled out bringing the new-gen Tundra to Australia at some point.

“As we said and we have been on the record many times about it, we are very interested in that market. If we are ever able to find a way, or a business case, to bring that product to Australia, then we will try to pursue it, but we don’t have anything to announce,” he said.

The new Tundra is built on the TNGA-F body-on-frame platform that’s shared with the LandCruiser 300 Series, and will likely underpin the next-generation HiLux due before 2025.

The Tundra is powered by a 290kW/649Nm 3.5-litre twin-turbo petrol V6 and a hybrid version, called the i-Force Max, which increases the output to 326kW/790kW.

The Chevrolet Silverado has found 1898 homes so far this year – more than the Jeep Gladiator and SsangYong Musso – while RAM has sold 3440 1500s, marking a 13.2 per cent increase compared to the January to November period in 2020.