A multi-purpose vehicle is something like that. The consumer chooses an MPV because it will serve his or her many requirements – a passenger sedan, holiday car, entrepreneur’s work horse, professional’s office, weekend warrior. Thus the name, multi-purpose vehicle.

It’s a tough challenge to develop one vehicle model that answers so many demands. So, automotive manufacturers designed a variety of models answering more specific demands – but still meeting the many requirements that consumers now expect from a vehicle – power, comfort, safety. The result, MPVs now come in the form of vans, pickups and SUVs.

The popularity of the MPVs can be seen on the roads. About half of the vehicles around the world are MPVs. Naturally, people use them for a variety of interesting functions: mobile office, delivery van, school bus, weekend car, dream vacation vehicle, sleeper, mobile dressing room (for stars).

In this important market category, the leader is Toyota Motor Corporation.

"Toyota has developed MPVs for just about every lifestyle and regional taste, having customers in more than 140 countries," said Vince Socco, general manager of the marketing services department of Toyota Motor Asia Pacific (TMAP), during the presentation of the IMV project in Sydney a few weeks ago. Attending "The Toyota Great Multipurpose Vehicle Adventure" were members of the motoring media from the Philippines, Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia

Drawing from its experience and technology gained from the development of this versatile vehicle, Toyota recently developed a totally new MPV for the 21st century. Mr. Shigaru Takayanagi, SVP Marketing Planning Division of TMAP, called it "a major challenge that has helped Toyota grow both as an automobile manufacturer and as a global company."

This challenge is known as the International Innovative Multi-purpose Vehicle (IMV) project which has launched five models – three pickups, one minvan and one SUV – in various parts of the world.

Two of them were launched in the Philippine market recently – the Innova minivan and Hilux pickup. The SUV model, the Fortuner, is expected to be launched in the local market soon.

The five IMV models are: Hilux standard cab, Hilux double cab, Hilux extra cab, Innova minivan, and the Fortuner SUV.

"The IMV is a vehicle developed by a company that operates in 140 countries and knows every highway and byway in the world. It is a vehicle in which Toyota technolgoy and know-how, gained from its worldwide sales and operations, has been fully utilized," said Mr. Yoshio Shirai, managing officer of Toyota Motor Corp.

To develop these new vehicles, four points were met to set a global standard: a global package, advanced design, newly designed frame and suspension and high-performance engines.

First, a basic size that would be welcomed by the customers all over the world was developed by establishing comfortable interior space for passengers and cargo.

Second, the advanced design incorporated comfort and high-quality attention to detail typical of Toyota passenger cars.

"Because Toyota has both the widest passenger car and conmmercial vehicle lineup in the world, we have more experience in developing vehicles in both categories," Mr. Shirai said.

Third, for the suspension, Mr. Shirai explained that aisde from improving rigidity, rough-road performance and driving stability, they also achieved passenger car level quiet and ride comfort.

"To meet the needs of a variety of customers, we also developed both a leaf spring rear suspension with high load carrying capacity and a coil spring rear suspension that offers superior handling and ride comfort," he said.

Fourth, the new engines. "We developed new models with both gasoline and diesel engines and tested them with fuel obtained from each region to ensure that detergents or other additives would not degrade performance. In view of the MPVs larger size, we paid particular attention to fuel economy, and sought to obtain an optimum balance between power and fuel efficiency."

The IMVs are products of a global initiative.

Mr. Takayanagi explained that since no original prototypes of those vehicles existed in Japan, engineers in other production centers had to make their own judgements on each production process only based on blue print.

For parts procurement, the IMV project team had to deal with over 600 suppliers worldwide.

Diesel engines were made in Thailand, gasoline engines in Indonesia and manual transmissions in the Philippines and India – were all supplied to the countries charged with vehicle production. (The Innova, for example, is also produced in the Sta. Rosa plant of Toyota Motor Philippines. Other vehicle assembly plants are in Thailand, Indonesia, Argentina and South Africa.)

On top of that, the team had to ensure the consistently high standard of "Made by Toyota" quality is maintained, Mr. Takayanagi said.

All that teamwork produced the new multipurpose vehicles. Starting in the summer of 2004, Toyota launched the Hilux Vigo pickup truck in Thailand; the Kijang Innova minivan in Indonesia in September, the Fortuner SUV in Thailand in November, the Hilux in the Philippines in December, followed by the Innova in February.

The launching of the new models were very well received in the markets, topping sales charts the month following their introductions.