Toyota Australia building life-sized Tonka Truck: HiLux Tonka

Toyota has good reason to celebrate.  In 2016 the Toyota HiLux became the first ute to be the top selling vehicle in Australia.  That’s a big deal, indicates a huge shift in buying overall, as well as a shift away from our traditional “utes”.

I’m still not totally comfortable calling the HiLux a ute, that’s more a Commodore/Falcon style thing to me, but – we’ve lost them now, so time to move on Trev!

On sale in Australia for 45 years and well regarded as “unbreakable”, Toyota decided to celebrate the sales milestone, plus 80 years of Toyota with a concept car for the big kids at heart.

They’re designing and building a Toyota HiLux Tonka.  Not an edition for sale, just a concept to impress and probably make kids smile!

They say the body will be” augmented with aggressive new bumpers, grille, tailgate, wheel-arches and door mouldings among other new components that reinforce its image as a tough-as-nails vehicle designed for off-road fun”.

Having seen a Ford Tonka Truck in Detroit, I can tell you if Toyota do this right, you’re going to be seeing photos of this Concept all over your interwebs.