The current Passo / Sirion is also manufactured by Malaysian car maker and Daihatsu's affiliated company Perodua. The Passo / Sirion was jointly developed by Toyota and its sister company Daihatsu. Malaysian Perodua engineers were also involved from the beginning of the project and thus it was designed to accomodate design changes to suit local tastes. With changes to the dashboard and instrument cluster, Perodua manufactures an ASEAN specs version of the vehicle for the Malaysian and Indonesian market under the badge Perodua Myvi (Malaysia) and Daihatsu Sirion (Indonesia)
With Indonesia being largest MPV market in the South East Asian region, and a growing demand for more sophisticated monocoque (unibody) frame car-based MPV particularly in Malaysia, it is only logical for Perodua to present a strong business case to locally assemble the Passo Sette / Sirion Ruminous. The next generation Avanza still far away (Toyota just launched a "micro-change" model update of the Avanza about 2 months ago). At the same time Nissan is enjoying strong demand for its B-platform based (Latio / Tiida / Versa / Sylphy) Grand Livina. Even Proton too will be launching an MPV based on its GX platform. The growing MPV market is ripe for Perodua's taking.
Of course, the image above refers to the Toyota badged Japanese domestic market version. Expect the ASEAN specs Perodua made version to have a slightly different interior.In an interview today with NST-Business Times, Perodua's MD Syed Hafiz revealed that Perodua will be launching an MPV by the fourth quarter of 2009. Meanwhile Proton is poised to launch its MPV by March 2009.