The car, a silver Toyota Camry Conquest V6, came off the assembly line at the company’s Altona rnanufacturtng plant in Melbourne yesterday, watched bv 3000 employees.

At the landmark ceremony, Toyota Australia president Sam Komori announced the company had achieved record production, sales and exports in 1998.

"This has been a year of outstanding achievement," he told employees.

Celebrating the 1,500,00th vehicle were (from left) manufacturing director Mike Harvie, senior employee representative Tony Carvalho, president Sam Komori, executive vice-president (manufacturing & engineering) Kazuhiro Sekiya, and employee representative co-ordinator Charlie Mamara.

"Despite the waterfront dispute and two gas supply stoppages during the year, we will reach our production target of !00,000 vehicles for the first time in Toyota’s 35-year manufacturing history in Australia.

"We also will post record domestic sales exceeding 155,000 units - 23 per cent better than the 1997 peak of 126,046 - in the face of intensified competition in all market segments," Mr Komori said.

"On the export front, we expect to ship almost 31,000 Camry units to our markets in the Middle East, South East Asia and Oceania, with most going to the six left-hand-drive states of the Gulf Co-operation Council (GCC)."

This is nearly 6000 units or 24 per cent more than the record set in 1997 and consolidates Toyota’s position as Australia’s leading car exporter.

Mr Komori forecast that total 1998 export revenue, including sales of engines and components, will approach $600 million compared with the company’s previous best of $484 million, also achieved in 1997.

30 years of local manufacture

Toyota (as AMI) began assembling cars in Australia in 1963, with the Tiara sedan, wagon and utility.

When the Corona replaced Tiara in 1965, the daily production rate at the Port Melbourne plant quadrupled to around 40 units, and continued to rise with the introduction of the Crown in 1967 and the Corolla in 1968. Meantime the company was still assembling Rambler and Triumph models.

It took the Port Melbourne factory 20 years to build its first half-millionth local car, but less than nine years to reach the millon mark in March 1992.

The third half-millionth vehicle has been achieved in just six years and nine months, a period that has paralleled the construction, commissioring and, in 1998, the full capacity operation of the modern Altona plant.

Today Altona produces 430 vehicles daily, with around 30 per cent built for export.

Corolla is the longest running of all Toyota produced models in Australia, with almost 587,000 built in the 30 years since 1968. This does not include the 28,128 Corolla-based Nova units built for the Toyota-Holden joint venture between 1989-1996.

Corolla ceases local production in mid-1999 to make way for a large new car to be built at AItona in the year 2000. However, the popular marque continues as the mainstay of Toyota Australia's small car range through the progressive import of new models.

Camry, which joined the Port Melbourne assembly !ine in 1987 before transferring to Altona in 1995, already has an accumulated production total of over 461,000 units.