Toyota Will Continue To Build Sports Cars With Help From Other Car Brands

While crossovers and electrified vehicles are taking over the automotive landscape, a few brands are committed to making exciting vehicles. Toyota is one of them and promises to continue making sports cars – but only with help from other automakers.

Speaking to the Australian media, GR Company President Tomoya Takahashi said co-developing sports cars with other manufacturers makes vehicles of these sorts possible, reports CarsGuide: “I want to work with a smile on my face. If I’m not smiling, I cannot make the customer smile. The sports car market is shrinking in the future. We cannot maintain sports cars as one brand, Toyota. Collaboration between brands will increase in the future. We don’t know with whom we’re going to collaborate.”

More Toyota Sports Cars On The Horizon

These comments follow an abundance of rumors that suggest the automaker will revive classic sports cars. This includes the mid-engined MR2 and the beloved Celica, both of which haven’t been in production for over two decades. The brand’s current sports cars are based on existing models (the GR Yaris and GR Corolla) or have been co-developed with other brands. The GR Supra, for example, is mechanically related to the BMW Z4, and the GR86 was developed in collaboration with Subaru. We could also see a GR Crown sedan with up to 400 horsepower, but this is also unconfirmed.

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There are rumors that Toyota could base a new sports car on a revival of the Suzuki Cappuccino. This makes sense for several reasons. Firstly, the two brands have worked together for years, selling rebadged variants of each other’s cars in different markets. Given this unique partnership and the fact that Toyota wants to co-develop sports cars with other brands, this is a real possibility. However, there has been absolutely no official indication that these rumors may be valid.

The Only Way To Ensure The Survival Of Sports Cars

Lower development costs will make it easier for Toyota to justify the production of low-volume cars, even though the brand’s sportier vehicles sell reasonably well. The issue is that building a good sports car is not as easy as throwing a few parts together to create something athletic; it takes loads of R&D and plenty of buy-in from suppliers. Given the numbers in which sports cars sell relative to crossovers and SUVs, for example, collaboration is the only feasible way to ensure that a good sports car can be made at a reasonable price.

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Hybrids are a possibility (and so are hydrogen combustion engines), but GR-badged EVs? They’re not coming anytime soon.

And don’t think this is Toyota being cheap. The automaker is thinking about its customers and sports car fans alike. “It’s not for one manufacturer to survive, but to protect car enthusiasts. Our mission is to make car guys smile, so we need to collaborate sometimes,” concluded Takahashi. In the meantime, GR is toying with the idea of a performance SUV, noting that a high-speed family hauler could be just what the brand needs to grow stronger.

Source:
Carsguide