Another great local vehicle book from the team at Bateman books and author Steve Holmes, this follows a similar pattern to previous books from Steve and Bateman that we have reviewed such as Kiwi Falcons and Historic New Zealand Racing Cars.

As quoted in the promotional material, “The Toyota is a motoring icon. Like the humble Wattie’s Tomato Sauce or Pineapple Lumps, the Toyota is ingrained into our culture. Most Kiwis have driven or owned one of these iconic cars sometime in their life.”

The book covers Toyota’s used as private vehicles, business vehicles and for motorsport. Some are very well known to the public such as The Team Toyota Rally Corollas from the 1970’s (Toyota imported three TE27 Toyota Levins for the 1973 Heatway rally with 1588cc Twin Cam engines). One of these has recently been restored to its former glory by Clive Robertson.

The book also looks at some well-known Kiwis who have a heritage with Toyotas such as the legendary Barry Crump who will always be synonymous with the Toyota Hilux, Chris Amon who worked closely with Toyota in the 80’s and 90’s improving suspension tune on the locally built vehicles, and Trevor Crowe who built two awesome examples of Starlets for OSCA racing, the second raced as well by Roger Freeth.

Models covered run the range from common to lesser know with Corollas, Coronas and Starlets at one end and Truenos, Cressidas and Soarers at the other.

A couple of interesting examples covered are Rod Harvey’s drag racing Celica, run mainly in Australia. This 2500hp monster has done a 5.90 second pass. Another is Glenn Holmes’ 1993 Hilux that has clocked up over one million kms.

If you love New Zealand motoring history and Toyotas this is another excellent look into some of the cars and the fans that help preserve that history.

Available from good bookstores price $45.