Toyota execs have stated on numerous occasions that HSV is the benchmark in this country for boutique performance car brands, which is no surprise really considering for a long time they where the ONLY manufacturer in the segment! FPV has since come along but HSV still absolutely dominate FPV in the sales charts and therefore still remain the benchmark, thats simply the way it is.

Now i NEVER said TRD wants to build the SAME products as HSV. That would be silly, for a start toyota dont build commodores to base their vehicles off! Well… not for recently anyway! All i said is that the brand HSV, not the products but the BRAND of HSV, is at the level which toyota hope for TRD to one day be at, that meaning they wish for TRD to one day be the leading name in performance cars in this country.

Now i’m sure i dont need to go through all my wheels and motor magazines to find specific quotes of this because i’m sure you will agree that this is very obviously the case. Why else would toyota launch a brand called TRD on the back of a motorsport program (ala HSV which started out of a little motorsport program called the holden racing team) and then use this brand of TRD to modify family cars to turn them into performance cars, ie what HSV does with turning commodores into clubsports etc. You havve to ask why would they adpot a model so STRIKINGLY similar to that of HSV if they didnt want to muscle in on the segment that HSV currently occupies? The answer to that again is obvious, its because they DO want to move in on the same territory as HSV currently occupies.

Its like when FPV first came out, everyone knew they where going to target HSV and that they where going to produce products that will challenge HSV, but the FPV people ranted about “we are not targeting HSV, rather giving people an alternative to HSV” which is basically code for we are targeting HSV but we dont want to admit that HSV is a success story so hence we wont admit that we are targeting them. And thats exactly the same as what TRD are doing

your walking proof of that aren’t you buddy! captiva is crap because its made in korea, japanese cars FTW! WOOOO! So short minded that you can’t even remember 20 years ago when japanese made cars where considered absolute rubbish in the same way that korean cars are now.. how times can change for the japanese motor industry, but apparently not for the korean? i see….

Chriss Parr – the crash safety of some korean cars are indeed crap as you say, the barina springs imediately to mind, however the captiva actually rates 4 stars. Not perfect i would agree, but certainly a very long way from crap. RESEARCH people.. it really does help when you try and be a badge warrior! otherwise you just look silly

Still, you clearly haven’t driven the car, so your opinion, which is largely a boring reptition of “holdenwoo”, which reflects badly on you. I’ve had bad experiences with Ford (2000 model Festiva, a Korean car), but even I know that Ford make some good cars, and not all Korean cars are crap.

The Captiva isn’t a Lanos, not by a long shot. Go drive the car, I think you’ll revise your opinion.