Will America's Bubba's Love Tundra?

SAN ANTONIO, Texas, Nov 16, 2006; Reuters reported that deep in the heart of Texas, Toyota Motor Corp. is readying a pumped-up pickup the automaker sees as its most important product ever and the beginning of the battle for "Bubba" -- the all-American truck lover who has proved Detroit's last loyal customer.

Toyota executives describe the February launch of the all-new Tundra pickup as the biggest strategic bet in the Japanese automaker's history, more important even than the launch of its luxury Lexus and youth-oriented Scion brands.

The first new Tundra will roll off the line on Friday in a just-completed $1.2-billion plant eight miles south of the Alamo in San Antonio -- the middle of the biggest truck market in the United States.

Game Console Wars The video game industry's own clash of the titans reboots this week with the midnight launch of Sony's PlayStation 3 and Sunday's debut of Nintendo's Wii.

Full coverage About one in seven pickups sold in the U.S. market are bought in Texas, and Toyota is looking to use its new plant and payroll of 2,000 workers to jump-start goodwill for the Tundra.

A Toyota billboard outside downtown San Antonio shows the new truck in profile with the caption: "Another Reason Not to Mess with Texas."

Toyota dealers, many of whom have spent millions of dollars renovating showrooms and widening repair bays for the bigger truck, expect their first Tundra customers will come from those already sold on the Japanese brand.

But Toyota also expects to make inroads with those now loyal to Detroit-made trucks by showing off the Tundra at events like bass fishing tournaments and country music venues.

"We call these guys Bubbas. A lot of these guys have 'Ford' tattooed on their arms. It's going to take a while to win them over," said Ronnie Bernal, sales manager at Red McCombs Toyota in San Antonio. "We just need to get the Tundra out there, because there are guys who will say these are Japanese rice burners. They're play trucks. It's going to take a while, but we'll get them." TAKE THE WIFE AND THE DOG

Toyota's past two attempts to crack the American full-sized truck market failed and its trucks were dismissed by critics as underpowered and undersized.

Although the Japanese automaker has been gaining sales elsewhere, rivals Ford Motor Co. and General Motors Corp. still dominate the full-size truck market. Taken together Ford's F series and the Chevrolet Silverado outsell the Tundra by more than 10-to-1.

But Champion Toyota in Austin, Texas expects the new Tundra to triple the dealership's monthly truck sales volumes from near 50 to about 150.

Game Console Wars The video game industry's own clash of the titans reboots this week with the midnight launch of Sony's PlayStation 3 and Sunday's debut of Nintendo's Wii.

"We want Bubba. The guy who has said that's a nice truck but I can't fit both my wife and my dog," said general manager Scosh Annabelli. "These guys can no longer say the truck ain't big enough."

Toyota forecast it will sell 200,000 Tundras next year, but the company will have the capacity to make 300,000 units once its plant in Indiana switches over to production of the new model.

Although overall U.S. truck sales were down 7 percent through October, many analysts and even Toyota dealers see the company's initial sales projection as conservative.

"Toyota may not hit a home run the first time or even the second time, but they stick with it until they get it right," said George Magliano, analyst at Global Insight. "This is going to be a big truck."

Magliano expects Toyota to almost double its Tundra sales volume to near 230,000 next year. By comparison, Ford sold over 900,000 of its market-leading F series in 2005. The Chevy Silverado, which GM has revamped for 2007 and backed with a patriotic marketing campaign themed "Our Country, Our Truck," sold almost 706,000 units last year.

Toyota thinks it has addressed the shortcomings that kept the current-generation Tundra from competing head on with rivals.

When Toyota researchers saw silver miners in Wyoming who kept trucks idling with the air-conditioners on for a full shift, they saw an opportunity by adding more powerful cooling system and knobs that can be manipulated without taking off work gloves.

Toyota is also equipping the Tundra with a 5.7-liter V8, its biggest engine yet. Those powerhouse versions of the Tundra will not go into production until January, the reason the company is holding back its launch until February.

Game Console Wars The video game industry's own clash of the titans reboots this week with the midnight launch of Sony's PlayStation 3 and Sunday's debut of Nintendo's Wii.

Full coverage Erich Merkle, an analyst at IRN Inc., said he expected Toyota would go slow with the Tundra at first in order to make sure that the launch goes off without a hitch.

But he said Toyota was already winning the longer-term battle for the hearts and minds of Texans by bringing jobs to San Antonio. "Texans aren't going to feel that's a foreign truck anymore," he said.