Toyota, Honda refuse to comment on 'Asia Car'

Toyota, Honda refuse to comment on 'Asia Car'

TOKYO (Dow Jones): Toyota Motor Corp. and Honda Motor Co. won't comment on a report in the Nihon Keizai Shimbun's Wednesday morning edition that the two largest Japanese carmakers will replace their vehicles specifically designed for the Southeast Asian market with smaller, cheaper models, Toyota and Honda said the same day.

The two carmakers each launched an "Asia car," or a 1.5-liter compact car targeted at the Southeast Asian market, in either 1996 or 1997 and suffered from impact of the Asian currency crisis on the products immediately after their launches.

Toyota won't unveil product plans before it is ready to make official announcements, a Toyota spokesman said. The newspaper report said Toyota will replace its "Soluna" compact car with its smaller "Platz" car in the Southeast Asian market in 2003.

Honda will respond on Thursday at the presentation in Tokyo of its new "Fit" small car on whether it will replace its 1.5-liter "City" compact car with the Fit in Southeast Asia, a Honda spokesman said.

Toyota shares finished up 1.2 percent at 4,240 yen Wednesday on the Tokyo Stock Exchange, while Honda shares closed up 0.6 percent at 5,390 yen. The Nikkei's auto sector subindex rose 0.2 percent on the back of the yen's continued weakness in the foreign exchange market. The overall Nikkei index was up 0.8 percent.