Even after driving his truck more than 1 million miles, Glen Allen doesn’t think the old girl has reached the end of the road. She keeps on rolling, even on a long trip.
“I can leave right now, punch your address into my GPS and drive with as much confidence as I have when I drive to the grocery store a quarter mile away,” says Allen, who lives in St. Amant, La.
 
That’s important for a man who makes his living driving across the country, escorting vehicles carrying oversized loads.
 
Allen bought his 1996 pickup truck in January 1997 from Price LeBlanc Toyota in nearby Baton Rouge. The truck had six miles on it.
 
It was his fourth Toyota vehicle, the only brand he’s ever owned. “I bought my first one when I was 21 years old,” he says. “It was an ’84 Xtra Cab, white with gray interior.”
 
He later bought a ’91 Corolla and a ’93 Toyota pickup truck. “I’ve been very impressed with Toyota’s products,” he says. “I really don’t have the desire to purchase anything else.”
 
He’s particularly pleased with his current truck. “For a small truck, it has plenty of leg room and head room,” he says. “It’s been a comfortable little truck for me. I can reach anything I need from the driver’s seat.”
 
Comfort is vital to Allen, who can rack up 90,000 miles a year escorting trucks carrying bulldozers, cranes and other heavy equipment. “I could get a call in the next five minutes telling me to go to Minnesota,” he says. “I never know where I’m going or when I’m going. I’ve got to keep my bag packed.”
 
Despite the uncertainty, he says, “It’s exciting because I get to go to a lot of places I never dreamed of going. I’ve been to 38 states and Canada. I enjoy taking back roads, running into little hole-in-the-wall restaurants.”
 
Allen doesn’t spend all of his time on the road. He sometimes spends hours in parking lots while the big trucks are being loaded. But he doesn’t mind waiting because his cabin is comfortable enough for naps. “I get some of my best sleep in my truck,” he says.
 
Even during Louisiana’s scorching summers. “I can sit in my truck all day long with the air conditioning on, and the temperature never goes up,” he says.
 
Allen calls his truck “My Little Red Demon.”  As for the gender, he says, “I think a vehicle is always a ‘her,’ isn’t it? You treat her nicely, and she’ll take care of you.”
 
Allen has treated his vehicle nicely. “I don’t dog the truck,” he says. “I don’t hot rod it at all.”
 
He gets the tires rotated regularly and changes the oil every 5,000 miles. He replaced the original engine at 658,000 miles. “The original clutch looked so good, the mechanic was tempted to put it back in.”
 
He got the truck painted a couple of years ago because “I wanted her to look good when she turned a million.”
 
Yes, Allen was confident his truck would reach that milestone. “Once I saw how far the first engine got me, I thought I could get to a million.”
 
Today, his truck has about 1,080,000 miles on it. Although his family and friends have urged him to get a new truck, he’s in no hurry. “It’s still in great shape,” he says. “Even if I get a new truck, I’ll keep this one for local jobs.”
 
When the time does come, Allen will probably get a Tacoma “unless I’m just completely blown away by a Tundra.”
 
In the meantime, he says, “I take care of my truck the best I can and boogie down the road. We spend a lot of time together. She’s the love of my life, what can I say?”

Courtesy of ToyotaDriverSeat.com

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Toyota announced today (Friday) it will expand its Huntsville, Ala. engine facility to increase North American production of V6 engines. The approximately $80 million investment will bring total plant investment to more than $700 million. Approximately 125 new jobs will be created, increasing employment nearly 10 percent to 1,150. The expansion will allow Toyota Motor Manufacturing Alabama, Inc. (TMMAL) to build an additional 216,000 engines each year, boosting total V6 annual capacity to 362,000. A new 300,000 sq. ft. building will be constructed. The increased production will begin in March 2014.

 TMMAL currently assembles 4-cylinder, V6 and V8 engines for eight of 12 Toyota North American built vehicles. TMMAL is the only Toyota plant globally to produce these three types of engines in one facility. This investment will increase engine production at the Huntsville plant to more than 700,000 annually, and will increase total Toyota engine production in the U.S. to more than 1.4 million per year.  Toyota also builds engines in Kentucky and West Virginia.

 “We are proud to announce our fourth expansion, only a few months after celebrating 10 years of success in Huntsville and Madison County,” said Jim Bolte, President of TMMAL. “Today wouldn’t be possible without continued commitment from our outstanding team members and support from our community partners.”            “Toyota Motor Manufacturing Alabama has been a dedicated corporate citizen in Alabama for more than ten years, and today’s announcement is an exciting new chapter for this company and this community. Toyota’s success in Alabama is a testament to the hard-working men and women of the production and leadership teams who have dedicated themselves to producing quality products,” said Governor Robert Bentley. “This expansion is also a testament to the business climate we’ve worked hard to create in Alabama – a climate in which companies are encouraged to expand, innovate, and create new jobs. We thank Toyota for the company’s continued confidence in Alabama and Huntsville, and we look forward to a continued long-term relationship.”

 Today’s announcement is the latest in a string of Toyota production increase announcements since February including Toyota plants in Indiana, West Virginia, Canada and Kentucky. Cumulative investment total is approximately $645 million and more than 1,100 jobs are being added. “This V6 line addition continues to reflect our growing optimism for an improving North American market, and we continue to study more localization in North America,” said Steve St. Angelo, Executive Vice President of Toyota Motor Engineering & Manufacturing North America, Inc.

Courtesy of Toyota Media Newsroom

For four guys going golfing in Japan’s picturesque countryside over the weekend, there’s slim pickings when it comes to small fuel-economy vehicles big enough to fit clubs and all passengers.

Even if there’s enough leg room, the luggage room ends up being too small or vice versa. But Toyota Motor Corp. may have made the purchasing process a lot easier by re-introducing a familiar set of wheels.

The auto giant last Friday rolled out its redesigned Corolla model. The debut of the world’s best selling model, which boasts cumulative sales of more than 39 million vehicles, comes at just the right time as generous government purchasing incentives are sparking sales of fuel-economy cars in the domestic market.

Plus the Corolla’s one-time foes — Nissan Motor Co.’s Sunny and Honda Motor Co.’s Civic — are gone, as shrinking demand prompted both companies to discontinue production of those small sedans for the Japanese market. Nissan does offer a sedan version of its Tiida small car. Accounting for less than 2% of the total market now, demand for compact sedans has generally dried up.

But the Corolla is the exception to the rule. Helped by a wide range of lineups, the model won the title of most popular car of the year (excluding mini cars) for five years in a row until it was toppled by Honda’s Fit compact in 2008.

Ironically, if Toyota’s flagship small car is going to be able to regain the No. 1 crown, it will have to beat the company’s own Prius model. The hybrid was the best-selling model of Japan last year. Indeed, the Corolla has something that it probably hopes to take back in the future from the gasoline-electric powered car. The Prius’s sales of 315,669 vehicles in 2010 actually trounced the previous Japan’s annual record sales of 300,008 vehicles logged by the Corolla 20 years earlier.

“That won’t happen,” Hiroya Fujita, the chief engineer of the new Corolla, said of the possibility of the car unseating the Prius. Even the king of the best selling models can’t buck the trend of receding appetite for small sedans, he said. Toyota set the monthly sales target of a combined 7,000 vehicles for both its Corolla Axio sedan and its Corolla Fielder station wagon. The figure falls short of the target for the Prius of 10,000 vehicles a month.

The latest Corolla boasts fresh selling points: improved fuel-economy of more than 20km/l, 40 mm roomier knee space in the backseat despite its 50 mm shorter body size and broader engine options that include a 1.3L engine.

Courtesy of The Wall Street Journal

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Courtesy of ToyotaNewsroom