Enlarge the picture above and you’ll see that this particular Toyota Aurion TRD doesn’t look quite normal. And truly enough, the Aurion TRD is one of the go-kart like cars that will run at the Aussie Racing Cars Series in next weekend’s Nikon Indy 300 race. All Aussie Racing Cars have a moulded body and share a space-frame chassis and a 122HP Yamaha engine. They compete nationally at V8 Supercar events, as well as the Indy 300 and the Australian Grand Prix.

China is yet another significant market were General Motors is losing ground to Toyota. According to a report from Bloomberg citing data issued by the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers, Toyota’s two Chinese auto ventures raised their sales by a whopping 30% to 407,427 cars and SUVs during the first nine months of the year in the domestic market. At the same time, GM’s passenger car sales remained stagnate at 373,945 vehicles.

Toyota’s in-house customization firm Modellista has introduced a pair of cosmetic packages for the all-new iQ mini car that is set to go on sale in Japan this November. The Modellista Version Maxi that costs around $4,000 is the sportier of the two packages as it adds a front spoiler, side skirts and a rear spoiler that houses twin sport exhaust tailpipes. The less extravagant Version Mixutre can be bought for the equivalent of $700 and it includes mirror caps, side window decals, a rear door lock cover and protective door strips which are available in various colors.

With sales of large SUVs and pickup trucks in the States on the constant decline Toyota decided to partially deal with the oversupply problem by exporting the Sequoia SUV that’s made in Indiana to the Middle East and South America, and the Tundra pickup truck made at its plant in Texas to South America. Annually, Toyota plans to ship approximately 15,000 units of the Sequoia to the Middle East, and around 150 units of the Sequoia and 1,000 units of the Tundra to South America. In both cases, exports are scheduled to start in December 2008.

Toyota will expand its Highlander SUV line-up with the introduction of a new 2.7-liter inline four-cylinder engine that will be available in mid-to-late January 2009. When the Japanese firm launched the latest generation Highlander in 2007, it was offered with a 270HP 3.5-liter V6 petrol engine and a 270HP 3.3-liter V6 Hybrid powerplant. Toyota’s new four-banger generates an output of 187HP at 5,800 rpm and 186 lb.-ft. of peak torque at 4,100 rpm and will be mated to an all-new six-speed electronically controlled automatic overdrive transmission.

Toyota showed off three Tundra concepts in Las Vegas but the coolest one in town was by far was the Ducati Desmosedici Transporter. Built to carry the only street legal MotoGP bike ever produced, the scorching hot Ducati Desmosedici RR, the customized Tundra has been modified to accept a 6.5-inch bed that features flip up bedsides and a motorized loading ramp. The pickup truck is of course tied thematically to the bike, incorporating the Italian motorcycle company’s red paint finish with white stripes. Power is provided by a 5.7-liter supercharged V8 engine producing 500HP and 550-lbs/ft of torque.

If the sole purposing of creating this concept was to hide the fact that it’s a Toyota RAV4, then admittedly MV Designz did an excellent job. The RAV4 V6 Performance Sport Concept gets a custom-made wide bodykit accented by 22-inch Alloy Wheels, a hood scoop, a panoramic glass roof, billet door handles and, new front and rear faceless fascias. According to Toyota, interior modifications to the RAV4-based concept are limited to a new upholstery by Reyes. Maybe it’s a matter of personal taste, but we get the feeling that if MV Designz hadn’t “surgicaly” replaced the RAV4’s face with a Pontiac-like mask, we might have actually liked the outcome.

No car seems to have escaped from the makeover-claws of the loony-tuning doctors at this year’s SEMA show - not even the humble Toyota Yaris hatchback. The “Kermit-esque” Yaris Tailback concept has received a complete exterior overhaul featuring a wide bodykit as well as automated rear suicide doors and rear split tailgate. The custom body is accompanied by a set of DPE wheels that feature eleven inch wide rear wheels with a five and a half inch lip and are covered in Nitto rubber, Rotora big brake kit, and Tanabe lowering springs.

If it looks like a Toyota bB and a Daihatsu COO (marketed as the Materia in Europe) that is because the new Subaru Dex is in fact the same vehicle. Sure Subie’s designers slapped on a Tribeca-sized grille and a couple of logos here and there, but other than that, there’s nothing ‘Subaru’ about the Dex. We never liked badge-engineering and seeing the Dex it’s not hard to understand why.

The world’s smallest four-seater passenger car -or so Toyota claims, the iQ, has won the 2008 Japan Car of the Year award. Toyota’s new proposal in the minicar segment that will most likely come to the States as a Scion (click here for details) triumphed over its antagonists scoring more than double the points of the second placed Citroen C5, receiving top marks from 39 of the 65 jurors who voted.