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Toyo TIRE CO., Ltd. and Toyota Auto Body Co., Ltd. announced that the rally team "Team Land Cruiser Toyota Auto Body"s vehicle Toyota Land Cruiser will be supplied with our OPEN COUNTRY M/TR off-road tyres for pickup trucks/SUVs to support their challenge of the "Dakar Rally 2023".

The Dakar Rally is a cross-country rally (off-road endurance rally) competition that has been held since 1979. It is known as one of the toughest motorsport competitions in the world, as it requires precise course selection and continuous running over a period of two weeks in a variety of environments ranging from cold mountainous areas to scorching deserts.

The Dakar Rally 2023, which will begin on December 31, 2023, will be held on a route that crosses Saudi Arabia from the west coast to the east coast. A total of 15 special stages (competition sections) on the route (including the prologue stage), approximately 5,000km, and the liaison section (moving section) that connects them, will be competed for cumulative running time.

Team Land Cruiser Toyota Auto Body, which we have been providing tyre support since 2021, is a rally team organized to participate in this rally with Toyota Land Cruiser developed and produced by Toyota Auto Body of the Toyota Group. In 1995, with the former Toyota Team Araco, they first participated in the Paris-Dakar Rally with a Land Cruiser (80 series). Since then, they have continued to participate in this rally in the T2 production car divison, and achieved his ninth consecutive victory in the division at the 2022 Dakar Rally.

Last year, we developed the OPEN COUNTRY M/TR for use in the Dakar Rally, taking advantage of the off-road racing technology and experience we have cultivated with Team Land Cruiser Toyota Auto Body. In the Dakar Rally 2023, the Land Cruiser LC300 (Dakar Rally 2023 specifications) will pursue driving performance on rough road surfaces such as rocky areas and deserts, improve durability and wear resistance, and reduce environmental impact. OPEN COUNTRY M/TR (specs for Dakar Rally 2023) to support Team Land Cruiser Toyota Auto Body achievement of 10 consecutive victories in the commercial vehicle category. We will utilize the data and knowledge obtained through our motorsports activities in product development to deliver high-quality, high-performance tyres globally.

OPEN COUNTRY M/TR (Specs for Dakar Rally 2023)

This product is an OPEN COUNTRY M/TR (LT285/70 R17 116/113P) that we developed last year with the assumption that it will be used in the Dakar Rally. The rubber composition and tire structure have been tuned to improve durability. In addition to pursuing performance on rough road surfaces such as rocky areas and deserts, we have adopted a design, compound, and high-rigidity bead structure that minimizes tyre damage due to impacts during high-speed driving. In addition, we use sustainable materials in line with our policy of "realizing a sustainable moblity life". Of the tyre componencts, the tread, carcass ply, and sidewall are mainly made of butadiene rubber and styrene-butadiene rubber derived from biomass (derived from renewable materials such as plants), and recycled bead wire is used as a recycled material.

Our experience in participating in off-road races in harsh environments is fed back to the product development of tyres for pickup trucks and SUVs to refine their performance. In this race, one of the objectives is to further increase the blending and adoption of sustainable materials and improve their technology.

This initiative is psitioned as a part of our efforts to "contribute to the realization of a sustainable mobility society" among the seven items that the Group has identified as materiality in sustainability management. This will lead to the study of themes such as the development and stregthening of technology, the establishment of product and raw material recycling technology, and the development of alternative materials of environmentally hazardous substances.

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