China's new HiLux hunter just the start

Foton is on the comeback trail in Australia, but what comes next won’t be an SUV or a larger and more-powerful ute.

Instead, the Chinese brand has at least one new value-focused van under consideration, as it seeks to cement its reputation as a provider of no-nonsense commercial vehicles in this country.

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While nothing has yet been confirmed from distributor Inchcape Australia Limited (IAL), which also looks after the Subaru, Peugeot and Deepal franchises in Australia, the vans in question are believed to be one or both of the Toano-badged models available in China.

“Foton’s got some pretty strong van offerings,” IAL Managing Director Blair Read revealed to CarsGuide at the release of the Tunland V7 and V9 utes.

“That is where our current focus is, what we've been discussing with the factory, and then maybe SUVs down the track.

“But I think Foton’s strength is definitely as a commercial vehicle brand, and that's where we want to get that right first, and then we might look at those other opportunities.”

Foton Australia General Manager, Glen Cooper, added that every model that is suitable for this market that Foton produces is on the table, but only after the brand re-establishes itself with the Tunland range.

“If we're offered one, we'll look very carefully at it,” he said. “Fundamentally, they have different products available in different markets, and we're sort of considering all of them.

“But, to Blair’s point, we've got to stand this brand up (first), and today it's Tunland, and we're trying to get that right.”

So, which Foton van then? Carsguide has reached out to Foton's Australian representative for comment, but no response has been received as yet. There are several different models produced and guessing which ones are relevant can become confusing.

Some have a very Mercedes-Benz-like appearance, such as the Toano launched in China back in 2015. Looking like a carbon copy of the second-generation Sprinter from 2006 to 2018, it is available in van, cab-chassis and bus configurations.

This may not be a coincidence, since Foton has long had a commercial relationship with the German company, meaning the two full-sized vans could be very-closely related or even the same underneath, though the Toano’s main diesel powertrain comes from engine supplier Cummins.

Released in China last year, another version of this van is the Toano Grand-V. Packaged as front-engine/front-wheel drive, it is offered in either diesel or battery electric vehicle (EV) varieties, with the latter said to be capable of 600km of range.

Other van candidates include the Scenery/Landscape i7 – another EV but with futuristically boxy styling, as well as the View CS2 vans that look like the last two generations of Toyota HiAce.

Whichever model receives the green light for Australia, they won’t be the first Foton vans sold here, with the previous, extremely-HiAce H100-esque View CS2 in commercial-vehicle and minibus guises available here briefly in the mid-2010s.

Like the previous Tunland and short-lived Sauvana SUV of the same era, neither managed to find buyers in sufficient quantities, leading to the brand’s withdrawal from Australia before the end of the decade.