New car sales price Toyota Camry and Aurion

Appealing to our national identity to support local product is the Toyota’s latest lure to entice buyers into showrooms.

Toyota is pushing the “buy Australian” line with a 0 per cent finance deal on its locally assembled Camry, Camry Hybrid and Aurion sedans. Camry sales are still more than solid, with the sedan accounting for almost one in three cars sold in the mid-sized market. The Aurion, though, is being hammered by the move away from large sedans and sales are down 23 per cent so far this year.

Toyota's executive director sales and marketing Matthew Callachor says the finance offer is an extension of the company's Local Pride advertising campaign, which features staff from the Altona production line in Melbourne’s west extolling the virtues of the vehicles.

"Zero per cent (finance) is a way to encourage Australians to rediscover the value and other attributes of cars we build here," Callachor says.

"Over many years, we have exported several times more Australian-built Toyota cars than we sell locally. Our long-term aim is to shift this balance closer to 50:50. We are supporting that objective by reminding local motorists that Camry and Aurion are built by Australians for Australians."

Toyota built 96,618 cars at the plant last year, most of which were exported and will open a new $330 million engine facility in Victoria later this year to build the 2.5-litre four-cylinder engines that power the Camry range.

The financial promotion is a means of offsetting the continued strength of the Aussie dollar, which effectively gives importers a default discount on their vehicles.

Toyota isn’t the only carmaker with a 0 per cent finance deal. Renault and Nissan are pushing the interest-free loan on a three-year term for selected models. Kia and Mitsubishi are both touting 0.9 per cent finance and Honda has a 1.5 per cent rate on the Civic hatch.

LOCAL VEHICLE PRODUCTION