United Australian Automobile Industries
| Joint venture | |
| Industry | Automotive |
| Founded | December 1987 |
| Founder | Holden, Toyota Australia |
| Defunct | March 1996 |
| Headquarters | Melbourne, Australia |
| Products | Motor vehicles |
United Australian Automobile Industries (UAAI) was an automobile model sharing firm that operated in Australia between 1987 and 1996 as the result of an agreement between Holden (the Australian subsidiary of General Motors) and Toyota Australia. The joint venture resulted in the two companies sharing production of locally produced automobiles by selling their models under both brands.
UAAI produced three rebadged vehicles: the Holden Apollo (based on the Toyota Camry), Holden Nova (based on the Toyota Corolla) and Toyota Lexcen (based on the Holden Commodore).
The formation of UAAI can be traced back to the May 1984 announcement of the Button car plan, the work of Senator John Button, the Minister for Industry under the then current Bob Hawke led Labor government. The plan envisaged to rationalise and make the Australian automotive industry more competitive on a global scale by means of reducing import tariffs. Under an obligation to amalgamate, Holden and Toyota formed the UAAI joint venture on 11 December 1987 that resulted in model sharing between both automakers. These cars were released to the market in August 1989. As consistent with the government mandated plan, UAAI operated under the framework of coordinated design, engineering and product sharing whilst maintaining independent marketing operations and dealership networks. For Holden, it replaced the earlier joint venture with Nissan that had resulted in model sharing from 1984.
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