Toyota donates to Rural Aid
The Toyota Country Music Festival will donate funds to Rural Aid in support of remote communities.
Mental health services inside Rural Aid will benefit from Australia’s largest music festival’s Raffle for Resilience, with first prize on offer being a 200 Series Toyota LandCruiser.
It’s not just any 200 series up for grabs; a custom-built top-spec LandCruiser Sahara has been designed to pay homage to the legendary FJ40 LandCruiser which started life 60 years ago.
Original FJ40 inspires.
by Toyota’s Port Melbourne product planning and development team, the 200 Series gets a vintage gold paint scheme, with customer black grille inserts and rear cowling, and black alloys, to replace the vehicle’s original chrome highlights.
Genuine roof racks, nudge bar and a 3.5t braked towing kit are also blackened on the Sahara which also retains its powerhouse 200kW and 650Nm 4.5-litre twin-turbo, diesel V8. It’s a far cry from the original petrol 3.6-litre in-line six, four-speed LandCruiser which was brought to Australia in 1958.
In addition to the LandCruiser first prize, Toyota says it is contributing over $171,000 in prizes for the raffle, including a meet-and-greet with Glenn McGrath, two tickets to the 2019 AFL Grand Final, a 2018-team signed cricket bat and an All-Australian AFL team signed Sherrin football.
Toyota Australia marketing chief Wayne Gabriel says Rural Aid plays an important part in country people’s lives.
Wayne Gabriel, Toyota Australia chief marketing officer
“With the recent severe drought affecting millions across Australia, support for charities like Rural Aid is more crucial than ever and we are proud to have been able to provide support through the Toyota Country Music Festival,” he says.
“As the vehicle that’s played a part in the lives of so many rural Australians for 60 years, creating a bespoke LandCruiser to support them made perfect sense,” Gabriel adds.
“The organisation does a fantastic job in providing a variety of support services for rural Australians across the country and we hope that the chance to own this one-off vehicle will encourage people to support this raffle,” he says.
Rural Aid chief executive Charles Alder says farmers and regional communities have relied on Toyota for generations.
“People in the bush have had it particularly hard over the past few years, and demand for our services continues to increase so it’s great that Toyota is such a committed supporter of our cause,” he says.
“Toyota has always been there for rural and regional Australians, and given the popularity of its LandCruiser models among country folk, this makes for a great prize that we are sure will encourage the broader community to buy tickets,” Alder says.
“All proceeds will be used to help grow the essential mental health services we provide for those in need,” he adds.
Source: autotalk.com.au