Toyota Motor Corporation on Friday
unveiled Etios and Liva racing concepts at the 11th Auto Expo in New Delhi. These cars will participate in Etios Motor Racing (EMR) trophy in 2013, a first by the company in India.
"Motor sport is always considered to be niche in India. We want to change this production with this new Etios Motor Racing," Toyota Kirloskar Deputy Managing Director(Marketing) Sandeep Singh said.
Before the final race, the company will conduct preliminary round for short-listing the drivers at 12 locations in 13 cities across the country.
Talking about its plan to bring in Toyota International Motor Races to India, Toyota Motor Asia Pacific President Hiroji Onishi said first we would to generate interest among Indian customers and then future development will come.
At the Auto Expo 2012 show, the Japanese auto giant also announced that it will start production of its sedan Etios and
hatchback Liva - the two models that were first launched in India - in Brazil from 2013.
"We are going to start the first production outside India from next year. It will be for the Latin American nation and the production base would be Brazil," Onishi said.
He, however, did not share details such as production volume and the size of the investment for the project.
"Before going for production outside India, we will start exporting Etios and Liva to South Africa from March this year.
We would like to go overseas for establishing the products," Onishi said.