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Originally Posted by go2brz
I would just change one item. It is built by Subaru, and the design of the core attributes of the car are all subaru. Toyota gave the styling, and the direct injection/port injection technology and the ECU to allow 200HP and still be fuel efficient. Overall it is a Subaru. Just read the background on the car's metamorphis and development, and it is clear. This was a Subaru Skunk Works car that Toyota wanted badly and with their 20 percent stock ownership felt it was so necessary for their lineup that they were willing to give Subaru their proprietary engine control system to another car company (The FA20 is the NEW subaru engine of the future). Seems to me that Subaru won on this deal, as they could not afford to produce the car on their own, so gave up production cars to Toyota, for technology that would have been very expensive to do on their own as they are the only single car company (not owned by another conglomerate) with one line of cars. Even BMW has Mini now. This design is a major statement for Subaru. Toyota gets a sports car that they had no ability to envision on thier own. (As stated by the Chairman of Toyota).
I for one am very happy that Subaru got technology to lead them into the future simply by producing a car they wanted badly, but needed assistance to get the most out of the motor without a turbocharger (direct/port injection technology). Both companies benefited, but anyone who calls this car a Toyota is on the wrong end of the stick.
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I'm a Subaru guy, and as they did the engineering and manufacturing, I tend to think of the car as (more-or-less) two parts Subaru, one part Toyota.
But Toyota deserves credit for coming up with the idea, dragging (a very reluctant) Subaru into it, bankrolling, planning, and designing most of it, and providing the D4-S. From
autoguide:
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After studying what everyone else was doing, (seeing the use of turbochargers, all-wheel drive and high grip tires), Toyota decided to move in the opposite direction, instead opting to build a sports car that harkens back to the roots of machines like the AE86 – from which the GT86 gets its name. It occurred to Tada san that an ideal powerplant would be a boxer engine, due to its low center of gravity. Toyota had an historical precedent for the use of a boxer engine in the Sports 800, built from 1965 to 1969. Toyota also just so happened to have access to such engines through a recent purchase of shares in Subaru parent company Fuji Heavy Industries, and a shared project could help foster relations between the two rival automakers.
A proposal was penned, for a rear-drive, boxer powered sports car and presented to Subaru, which immediately axed it. Subaru executives had two major concerns says Tada san, the first being that a rear-drive machine doesn’t fit with Subaru’s all-wheel drive brand message. The second reservation, and one that speaks to Toyota’s newfound attitude of taking ownership of its beige-to-drive past, is the admission that Subaru didn’t think Toyota could build a sports car. And while harsh, it’s not entirely surprising, after all, the last sporty Toyota was a Celica GTS in 2006 and the last rear-drive Toyota car to roll off an assembly line (at least for US consumption) was in 2005.
The project was then suspended for six months but eventually the team involved at Toyota helped convince the powers that be at Subaru.
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Additional interesting reading about early rumors (note the debate about 1.5L vs 2.0L):
http://www.7tune.com/toyotasubaru-li...ht-sports-car/
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Originally Posted by dori.
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LOL. Yeah but without off-topic posts, forums would be so boring.