Toyota made history at the 2012 Dakar Rally in South America when three Toyota Hilux pickups built and developed in South Africa by Toyota Motorsport finished third, sixth and 11th.

Hino, the leading Japanese truck manufacturer, continued to build on its amazing record of successes in the gruelling annual Dakar Rally!

Motor sport fans will be able to watch a 30-minute daily highlights report of the 2012 Dakar Rally on SuperSport television, brought to you by Toyota South Africa.

With just one month to go before the start of the world’s greatest motor race, the Imperial Toyota South Africa Team that will contest the 2012 Dakar Rally in South America in January is involved in a race against time.

From January 1 to 15, the 465 drivers and riders entered for the 33rd edition of the world’s longest and toughest motor race will compete against each other over a total distance of some 8 300 kilometres.

Should South African motor sport fans be in any doubt about the credentials of Giniel de Villiers as a favourite in the 2012 Dakar Rally, they should log on to the race’s official website, www.dakar.com

South Africa’s international off road racing champion Giniel de Villiers driving an IMPERIAL Toyota Hilux, has been given the honour of leading the field of 171 cars at the start of the 2012 Dakar Rally in Argentina on January 1.

Before returning home, the Imperial Team Toyota rounded off their successful testing program in Namibian dunes at Lauberville.

Achievements for the day are that the suspension setup has been finalised, while Giniel completed a 70km dune crossing through soft sand in the heat of the day.

With the suspension calibration established, today saw a concerted effort at obtaining the best possible setup for the variety of conditions expected on the 2012 Dakar.

It was a day of settling in and calibrating the sophisticated telemetric systems to conditions that are similar to those expected on the Dakar.

IMPERIAL Toyota Team Dakar 2012 head to Namibia next week for sand testing in the tall dunes of the Namib Desert.

The South African flag continued to fly strongly in the OiLibya Rally of Morocco yesterday with Argentine off road racer Orlando Terranova and Spanish co-driver Lucas Cruz taking their South African-built Team Overdrive Toyota Hilux to its second stage victory in three days.

Argentine off road racer Orlando Terranova and Spanish co-driver Lucas Cruz gave South Africa’s Toyota Motorsport its first international special stage win when they finished first on the second day of the OiLibya Rally of Morocco.

IMPERIAL Toyota together with Toyota Motorsport will be the main sponsors of a team of two South African-built and developed Toyota Hilux Double Cab pickups, under the management of team principal Glyn Hall and to be driven by Geniel de Villiers and Duncan Vos