Toyota says Tundra inventory down, plan on track

DETROIT (Reuters) - Toyota Motor Corp is running down inventories of its Tundra pickup and remains on track to restart production of the truck at its San Antonio, Texas, plant in early November, an executive said on Wednesday.

Toyota, which has suspended production of the truck in order to run down dealer stocks, said it ended August with 36,686 Tundras in inventory, equal to 67 days' supply.

"We think that we're in pretty good shape right now as the (2008) inventory is coming down nicely," Irv Miller, spokesman for Toyota's U.S. sales unit, said in a conference call with reporters.

Toyota had said in July that it would suspend production of its redesigned Tundra pickup truck for three months beginning in early August.

The Tundra represents Toyota's attempt to break into the market for full-size pickup trucks, still dominated by Detroit automakers.

The Japanese automaker had called plans for its expanded production of the Tundra in the United States its most important vehicle launch ever.

But Toyota, like its American rivals led by General Motors Corp, overestimated demand for the heavy work trucks whose popularity had soared over the past decade when gas was cheaper and the U.S. housing market was strong.

Miller said Toyota was still on track to restart work at its $1.2-billion San Antonio plant in November. "Our plan is going as we forecasted," he said.

He also said Toyota was "guardedly optimistic" that industrywide U.S. auto sales for August showed that the sales conditions had hit bottom after a brutal slump that caught all major automakers off-guard.

"We see it as an improvement over July, a marginal improvement," he said. "There's not a lot of reason to go running down the street with balloons and flags because of the issues out there."

(Reporting by Soyoung Kim and Kevin Krolicki; Editing by Gary Hill, Phil Berlowitz)