Toyota?s TRD contenders

The countdown has begun for Toyota's push into Ford and Holden's heartland.

The new TRD contenders will be in showrooms within four months and the Aurion V6 and HiLux have been out for final verification work, as they are prepared for battle against SS Commodores and XR Falcons.

More signs are also pointing to a V6 RAV4, that shares its 3.5-litre engine with the Aurion, becoming the third TRD model.

The two confirmed starters are familiar to anyone who has been to a major motor show this year, but still the HiLux looked impressive when photographed last week.

The TRD operation is now moving from test and development into full-scale assembly work being done in Melbourne by Prodrive, which also holds the rights to fast Ford road cars in Australia.

The Aurion will be out first and, even though the HiLux is confirmed for November, Toyota Australia is still trying to keep full details secret. The car is likely to be available from September; the press preview drive is scheduled for late August.

“The car is coming in the third quarter. At this stage, that's all I can say,” Toyota spokesman Mike Breen says.

“It's all done. It's ready to go. You have basically seen it at the motor shows. It's supercharged V6 et cetera.”

The first TRD Aurions have already been ordered, Queensland police taking 11 for highway patrol work. They will join a batch of regular Aurion Sportivo V6s already in police paint.

The HiLux is more subdued than that unveiled at the Melbourne Motor Show in March, but still promises plenty of go with a similar supercharged engine.

“The HiLux is in November,” Breen says. “It is undergoing final testing. It's the 4.0-litre petrol engine, supercharged.”

Toyota has confirmed the TRD Aurion is quicker than expected, using a new Eaton twin-vortices supercharger packaged in Melbourne by Harrop Engineering.

“Total engine performance is one of the key positives of the TRD Aurion package,” TRD Australia chief engineer Stephen Castles says. “The TVS unit has performed really well and definitely helped deliver the engine performance we need.”

Work on the engine has also been done by the Orbital Engine Company in Perth, which focused on testing and component development.