BMW and Toyota Will Jointly Develop Sports Car Platform. New Supra to Result?
We already knew that Fiat and Mazda are jointly developing s sports car platform, Now, BMW’s development chief Herbert Diess told a German newspaper that the German automaker and Toyota will jointly develop and share a new platform for sports cars. “We have agreed on a joint architecture for a sports car. What is important is that there will be two different vehicles that are authentic to the two brands,” the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung quoted Diess as saying.
In June of 2012, BMW and Toyota signed a technology agreement covering cooperation on lithium-air batteries and lightweight technology. At the time the two companies said that they were looking into the possibility of creating a joint platform for an all new midsize sports car. That feasibility study was expected to be completed by the end of 2013. We’re at the end of 2013 and based on Diess’ comments, the study likely said that it’s feasible.
The newspaper said that Diess declined to provide details on specific models that would come to fruition from the agreement.
That hasn’t stopped speculation. Based on comments made in August by Toyota’s chief engineer of the GT86/FR-S sports car shared with Subaru, Tatsuya Tada, many think that Toyota’s share of the tie up with BMW will be a successor to the Supra. There are rumors that Toyota will reveal the next Supra at the big North American International Auto Show in Detroit next month.
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I just hope it has windows big enough to see out of.
First we had the Toybaru and now the Bimmyota, should be interesting.
I wish Toyota would find the guts to build their own sports car without anyone else helping. I'm sure if there is a new Supra it will be excellent, as is the 86. But will BMW allow Toyota to build a convertible version? Or a TRD version? I assume a new Supra would be priced as a cheaper alternative to the 4-series so BMW might restrict it to help their car. Is this really what Toyota wants?
Part of this BMW-Toyota agreement is that the Toyota Auris hatchback gets BMW 1.6 and 2.0 liter diesel engines here. Toyota builds great truck diesels (2.5 liter and up) but their smaller D4D diesel engines are not on par anymore with their counterparts from Germany, France and Italy.