Toyota Tamaraw to make a comeback in PH

The Toyota Innova may be the spiritual successor to the legendary and very popular Toyota Tamaraw which was sold in the Philippines for nearly three decades (1976 to 2005), but it surely didn’t have the seating capacity, and cargo hauling capability that the original Tamaraw nameplate was known for.

Well it looks like the Toyota Tamaraw will no longer be a thing of the past as Toyota Motor Philippines (TMP) President Atsuhiro Okamoto has confirmed the Japanese automaker’s plans to manufacture the well-respected nameplate once again.

The announcement was made during the official state visit of Philippine President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. in Japan, at a dinner hosted for media and delegates, including executives from Toyota Motor Corporation (TMC) and TMP. 

Okamoto said that they plan to invest Php 4.4-billion to retool TMP’s Sta. Rosa, Laguna assembly plant to accommodate the new light commercial vehicle (LCV). It is also good to note that he said that the new Tamaraw will purely be a utility vehicle with a body-on-frame construction instead of an Asian Utility Vehicle (AUV) which the old one was known as.

Nothing is final yet as of this writing but it is said that the new Tamaraw will be powered by a diesel engine under the hood and will be built on Toyota’s IMV-0 platform, an improved version of the current IMV platform, designed to allow the vehicle to have an electrified powertrain. Who knows, the new Tamaraw may be like the Toyota IMV-0 Concept which was previewed in December.

The Tamaraw’s local production is definitely welcome news as it will not only benefit our economy, but also produce and keep jobs in TMP’s assembly plant, especially with some reports saying that TMP will soon be ending local production of the Innova nameplate, with the next generation to be imported as completely built up (CBU) units instead.

As for when production of the new Toyota Tamaraw will begin, Okamoto says that it won’t start within the year as it is still in its study phase of development. This is definitely exciting news!