Toyota and Peugeot announce to jointly produce a small van

MANILA: Toyota and Peugeot have announced that both the companies will jointly work to develop a small van. It has been long since both the auto marques have been making vehicles together. The Peugeot 107, also known as Toyota Aygo and Citroën C1, was the first car to be made under this collaboration. Both of the automakers are now looking forward to strengthening their collaboration.

The new venture will be known as the C-Van project. The vehicle will be launched as Peugeot, Citroen and Toyota variants. It will be released in the European markets first, which might be followed by the ASEAN countries.

However, both the manufactures have not spoken much about the C-Van project. If rumours are to be believed, the vans will be identical to Toyota's small MPV, Sienna. It has been released in some selected Asian countries. The main deal of the partnership suggests that Toyota will provide additional inputs from an engineering standpoint, while Peugeot will do most of the development. This means the brand-new Peugeot Partner might be the base of Toyota’s next small van.

Toyota and Peugeot have made it clear that their main focus will be on commercial vehicles. And as a result, they might end the small car program. It means that the current small car, Peugeot 108 (Rebadged as Citroen C1 and Toyota Aygo), which is a part of this joint venture, might not receive any facelift in the near future.