The Toyota Hilux Champ is a fantastic compact pickup truck capable of all sorts of mighty things, but what’s most impressive about it is that it features a price tag of 459,000 Thai Bhat in Thailand. At current exchange rates, that’s just $13,000, while the new Tacoma in the US market stickers at $32,995. In short, you can’t find any new vehicle for $13-grand anymore in the USA, those days are long gone. Yet the Hilux Champ looks so modern and attainable. So, how did Toyota manage to make the Hilux Champ so affordable? It looks like the chief engineer for Toyota’s IMV platform, Dr. Jurachart Jongusuk, has the answers.
According to Road and Track, one of the reasons the Hilux Champ is so affordable is that it has very few features. It’s first and foremost a commercial vehicle, which allows for Toyota to cut some manufacturing corners, and it doesn’t have much going for it in terms of creature comforts. It’s a shrunken down commercial truck, stripped to the utilitarian essentials. From the factory, it comes out as nothing more than a chassis cab, putting the onus on the customer to find an upfitter to finish the backside with something that’s tailored to their vocational needs, such as a tray bed or a cargo box. or as Dr. Jongusuk describes it; the truck is “70 percent finished, with the remaining 30 percent customized by the customer.”
On top of that, Toyota refined the production process for parts by going to different manufacturing plants to further reduce costs for the Hilux Champ. For example, Toyota figured out that painting the inner and outer parts of the rear leaf spring shackles in different colors was a more cost-effective way to build the part. On top of that, Toyota is selling the Hilux Champ in a less complete state than it would be if it were a non-commercial vehicle. The company expects customers to add to what is essentially a blank canvas, which is why one can configure the pickup in so many different ways.
Toyota has a sound plan for the Hilux Champ pickup. The thought process is that if they can provide people with an affordable vehicle that they can also use to start or run a business, it will lead to improvements in the quality of life people have, along with “new economic opportunities.” Unfortunately, after launching in Thailand, the Hilux Champ will only go to Indonesia and the Philippines for now. There’s no further comment on whether the truck will arrive in other markets, but we hope it does. Toyota will be missing an ample opportunity if it doesn’t bring the affordable creation across the globe.
