Rumour: Toyota Vellfire to be killed off in 2022, merge with Alphard

The Toyota Alphard and its sporty-looking twin, the Vellfire have been the mainstay of Malaysian roads for years ever since they were introduced in 2002 and 2008 respectively. However, the time of terrorizing the fast lane, transporting VIPs and towkays might be ending for one of them.

According to Japanese site, Best Car, Toyota has announced that it would be downsizing some of its models beginning with the Toyota Tank mini MPV. The Tank will continue on sale until 15 September 2020, when the Tank is merged with its twin, the Roomy.

Toyota sells its cars in Japan across four different dealership sales channels – Toyota Store, Toyopet Store, Corolla Store, and Netz Store. Each of these dealer networks sells a different Toyota model, some of which are only exclusive at the particular store.

For instance, The Tank is sold at the Toyota Store and Corolla Store while the Roomy is sold at the Toyopet Store and Netz Store. However, beginning in May 2020, Toyota decided to lift that dealership exclusivity.

In Japan, Toyota has a whopping 54 different models listed on their website. The Japanese giant has set a target to reduce the number by half in 2025 and one of those ways is to merge their twin models into one, singular model. The Regius Ace was merged into the Hiace in May 2020 and the Succeed was merged with the Probox in August 2020.

Those models are commercial vehicles and the Roomy/Tank is the first non-commercial Toyota twin to be merged. As for why the Roomy is selected, that’s because it is the more popular model between the two.

Other twin models that are speculated to be merged into one include the Porte/Spade, Premio/Allion, Noah/Voxy/Esquire (okay, this is a triplet), and the Alphard/Vellfire.

Malaysia’s favourite tailgating van would probably see a generational change in early 2022 which is when Best Car speculates the final year we could see the Vellfire.

The average monthly sales for the Alphard in Japan are 6,500 while the Vellfire only accounts an average of 2,000 units a month. Judging by this sales figure, it’s probably easy to see which one would end up in the chopping block.

That being said, both the Vellfire and Alphard are essentially the same underneath with the Vellfire often seen as the sportier one of the two. Merging both into one makes sense for both the company and the benefit of the customers. Will you be missing the Vellfire if its death is officially confirmed?