Toyota-Subaru Sport Coupe To Break Cover at Tokyo Show
October 08, 2009
The affordable sport coupe that Toyota Motor Corp. desperately needs to prove it's still got passion is the same car that will symbolize how enmeshed giant Toyota has become with Fuji Heavy Industries Inc.'s tiny Subaru. And that car will be on display at the Tokyo motor show later this month.
Plans for the so-called "Toyobaru" coupe have been public since 2008, but reports of its engineering details have fluctuated and even its status as an approved production-car program has been questioned. Now with the FT-86 concept car, things seem to be solidifying, according to Peter Nunn's report at Edmunds.com's Inside Line.
Toyota may not have its version of the car in showrooms until late 2011, however.
The two companies have been developing the coupe jointly and each brand will sell a distinct version, but it seems most of the guts will come from Subaru. The FT-86 engine reportedly is Subaru's signature "boxer" horizontally opposed four-cylinder layout, with displacement of 2.0 liters.
Equally important, the companies wanted the car to be affordable, yet offer the handling and purity of rear-wheel drive. Toyota doesn't really have a suitable platform, nor Subaru, but the car might employ the Subaru Impreza's chassis, but converted from its transverse-engine/all-wheel-drive layout to a rear-drive configuration.
The FT-86's tight dimensions make it markedly smaller than a Honda Civic, but a 2+2 interior is a near certainty nonetheless.
Toyota's new president, Akio Toyoda (grandson of Toyota's founder who took over in June), recently told the media one reason the company is struggling financially -- and in connecting with customers -- is because Toyota no longer is making exciting cars. The affordable, rear-drive sport coupe is meant to address that corporate flaw and revive the desirability that Toyota's mothballed Celica and Supra nameplates delivered.
Toyota became Fuji's largest shareholder in 2005 (after Fuji and General Motors Co. severed their business and product-development ties) and since has steadily acquired larger portions of the company; Toyota currently owns about 17 percent of Fuji. Not long after taking its recent stake, Toyota began building Camrys at Subaru's U.S. assembly plant in Layfayette, Indiana, and the companies are reputedly to be studying a number of cross-production possibilities in Europe and Japan. -- Bill Visnic, Senior Contributing Editor
Photos courtesy Toyota Motor Sales USA
Posted by Michelle Krebs at 6:11 AM under Companies , Featured , Technology , Toyota | Comments (1) | digg this | Seed Newsvine
Good news, especially for Fuji. I think anybody who wanted a Solara already owns one.
I imagine all versions of this new 2+2 for North America would be built at the Lafayette, IN plant.
I also think that the Subaru version of such a vehicle would be the sales leader, given the success of their WRX.
I don't know how that scrappy-sounding boxer-4 emanating from a Toyota will go over.
Posted by: fulcrumb | October 12, 2009 at 7:44 PM