Caetano Optimo: the minibus from the Toyota side of the Caetano group

The Caetano Optimo is a minibus produced in Portugal by Toyota Caetano Portugal SA, the industrial arm of the Salvador Caetano group. Unlike the group’s coach and bus range, which comes under Caetano Bus, the Optimo sits with the Toyota side of the business, next to the assembly of the Toyota Dyna and Hilux.

Caetano Optimo at a glance

The Optimo has no Wikipedia article of its own; this page uses the English and Portuguese articles on Salvador Caetano, which list it among the company’s products and describe the business that builds it.

History of the Caetano Optimo

The Optimo belongs to the industrial side of the Salvador Caetano group rather than to its coachbuilding tradition. Toyota Caetano Portugal SA, one of the three main sub-holdings of the group, manages the import of Toyota and Lexus in Portugal, manufactures and exports the Toyota Dyna and Hilux, and produces the mini-bus Caetano Optimo. The group itself grew out of a coachbuilding workshop set up in 1946 by Salvador Fernandes Caetano together with his brother Alfredo and Joaquim Martins, and became the first coachbuilder in Portugal.

The industrial base for vehicles of this kind was laid in 1971, when the group’s first industrial unit for vehicle assembly was built in Ovar. Ten years later the group had assembled 100,000 vehicles, according to the Portuguese account of its history. Toyota had been represented in Portugal by Salvador Caetano since 1968, and from 2003 the Ovar operation has assembled the Dyna medium truck for export to several West European markets — the same industrial setting in which the Optimo is built.

The Optimo is still part of the company’s current product list, in which it is described simply as a minibus. It shares that list with the City Gold single-decker city bus and its EcoCity CNG, e.City Gold electric and H2.City Gold hydrogen variants, the Cobus 3000 airport bus with its electric e.Cobus version, the Invictus intercity coach, the Levante intercity coach and the Winner touring coach. An earlier minibus, the Ovar, appears among the historical models, so the Optimo continues a small-vehicle line that goes back to the early years of the bus business.

In the wider group the Optimo is one small part of a business that, by 2012, had a turnover of €1.6 billion and was responsible for 6,000 jobs in Portugal, the United Kingdom, Spain, Germany, Cape Verde and Angola. The group controls about fifty companies, from Toyota and Lexus distribution through multi-brand car retail to information technology, and it operates the Caetano UK company that has handled its British coach sales since 1984.

Design and features

• Toyota-side product: built by Toyota Caetano Portugal, the part of the group that imports Toyota and assembles the Dyna and Hilux.
• Minibus class: a small passenger vehicle, distinct from the group’s city buses and touring coaches.
• Current model: still listed among the company’s products today.
• Portuguese assembly: produced at the group’s industrial base in Ovar.

Caetano Optimo versions

• Caetano Optimo: the minibus itself, listed as a current product.
• Caetano Ovar: an earlier minibus of the same company, now listed among historical models.
• Caetano Bus range: the City Gold, Cobus, Invictus, Levante and Winner, built by the separate bus company.

The Optimo is one of two Caetano models on this site, together with the Algarve touring coach. More of the marque is in the Caetano collection.

Sources

• Salvador Caetano, English Wikipedia: products, group structure, history
• Salvador Caetano, Portuguese Wikipedia: company history, Ovar plant, exports