Toyota to Launch Dealerships in Mexico

By Chris Kraul

Dec. 15, 2001 12 AM PT

Toyota Motors Corp. announced at the Mexico City auto show that it will begin selling Camrys and Corollas at six Mexican dealerships set to open next April. The new cars will be imported from plants in Kentucky and Ontario, Canada.

Toyota, the last major auto company to set up sales and marketing operations in Mexico, also said it may announce a Mexico manufacturing site early next year. Mexican officials have said Toyota will build an assembly plant in Baja California, but the company says no announcement is ready.

In its first year of sales in Mexico, the Japanese auto giant hopes to sell about 5,000 new cars out of dealerships located in Mexico City, Monterrey and Guadalajara.

Autos Business

Chris Kraul

Chris Kraul covered South America for the Los Angeles Times from his base in Bogota, Colombia. He joined the paper in 1987 and was business editor of the San Diego edition until it closed in 1992. He then began covering the border and Mexican economies until his assignment to The Times’ Mexico City bureau in 2001. He reopened the paper’s Bogota bureau in 2006. He has also covered the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. He is a graduate of the University of South Florida and also has been a reporter at the San Jose Mercury News, San Diego Union-Tribune and the San Diego Business Journal.

Toyota to Launch Dealerships in Mexico

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