Should Toyota get its own preformance brand?
 

BMW has ///M
Audi has S
Volkswagen has GTi
Honda has Type R
Nissan has Spec-V

What does Toyota have? Should Toyota get a high performance brand under their name? If Toyota was going to make a high performance version of this car what should it be called? I don't think G-Sports works well. It seems like a aftermarket brand like TRD. What I think they need is a brand like Type R where various models have R versions like
Yaris R
Corolla R
GT86 R
Supra R

All of the different models are nessescary in my opinion because you can't build a brand like that with just dedicated sports cars, you need to make a brand people can identify with preformance. What do you think?

I think that is what TRD was/is should be ..it has just gotten diluted over time because Toyota has lost its passion

Subaru has STI

And now there new performance brand will be STI, hahaha. BTW most of those brands have had those linages on-going in models, something Toyota has not.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lexus_F_division

Done

I don't think they want to attach the F brand to regular non-lexus vehicles

Why "R" when you just said that is Honda?

They have used "S" before

Toyota has also used XR-S but FR-S XR-S sounds silly.

That would be an implication of awd if I am not mistaken

It's also used by Jaguar, Seat, VW (GTi is just a trim level for the Golf) and probably a few others.

In answer to the original post, Toyota would first need enough performance variants of its vanilla cars for there to be a need for one. Frankly, I'd rather they didn't waste their time on hotting up FWD econoboxes and soccermobiles, and just built a few more hoon-worthy cars instead.

you aren't mistaken. in most cases but the Carolla has an XRS and it is definatley still FWD

thats cuz we all know R stands for..... Racecar.

I think theres some confusion here in OPs post, Performance Brand or Performance Line? which i think are two different things.

like OP's post it should be like this;
Performance Brand:
Audi - ????
Nissan - Nismo
BMW - M GmbH
Honda - ????
Volkswagon - ????
Mazda - Mazdaspeed
Subaru - STi
Toyota - TRD
Mitsubishi - RallyArt
Mercedes Benz - AMG

Performance Line:
Audi - "R"
VW - ????
Nissan - Tune-(x) or Spec-(x)
BMW - M
Honda - Type R
Subaru - STi
Toyota - GTS??
Mitsubishi - Ralliart
Mazda - MPS/Mazdaspeed

or maybe iv lost tons of braincells this past month from all the holiday eating and drinking

That is right because there was a stink about it

oyota Racing Development or TRD is the in-house tuning shop for all Toyota, Lexus, and Scion cars. TRD is responsible both for improving street cars for more performance and supporting Toyota's racing interests around the world. TRD produces various tuning products and accessories, including performance suspension components, superchargers, and wheels. TRD parts are available through Toyota dealers, and are also available as accessories on brand-new Toyotas and Scions. Performance parts for Lexus vehicles are now labeled as F-Sport and performance Lexus models are labeled F to distinguish Lexus's F division from TRD. TRD is similar to other in-house tuning shops, such as Mazdaspeed (Mazda), Nismo (Nissan), Ralliart (Mitsubishi), STi (Subaru), Ford Performance Vehicles (Ford Australia), Special Vehicle Team (Ford North America), Street and Racing Technology (Chrysler), Holden Special Vehicles (Holden), Mercedes' AMG division, BMW "M" models, Audi "RS" models, Chevrolet's Super Sport, or Volvo R-Design models.

There is some

You forgot S-Line for Audi
Mugen for Honda
volkswagen uses R for both inhouse tuner and performance.
AWE does a lot of in house work for audi dunno if it's an official relationship though.

Mugen is not a inhouse tuning shop for Honda, Its just as third party is as spoon. Much like Dinan is to BMW.

i guess i was considering a in house tuning company with a close relationship with the manufacture.

AWE would fall under this catagory too. Audi has their S/RS cars as well. so that is their sports car division really.

ahh yeah...see that makes things kinda complicated when a shop has close relationships with a manufacturer. If we were considering this..then we have a shit load of names to add to the list. Like 5axis is to Scion.

touche my friend touche.

wasnt mugen started by honda's son? officially they may be 3rd party, but in spirit they are not.

yeah

All the different brands started from GM's separation of their marques, and look where that ended up. With branding comes exclusivity, and with exclusivity comes cost. I'm all for performance cars, but I don't think it's necessary to treat them differently. It could even work in that company's favor to do away with performance branding.

Right now Lexus has their F line to compete (I guess) with BMW's M line. If it were the same car, but let's just call it IS 500, you could then say that a vanilla Lexus was able to compete with the holy grail M line. I think that would raise the perceived reputation of their entire lineup and lower cost. The downside being that you lose all exclusivity and the type of customer that only cares about his car as a status symbol would no longer find value in your product.

What the fuck.... I know many of you guys are only exposed to the bullshit that TRD USA does but... TRD is a revered (albeit expen$ive) performance name brand in many parts of the world.

Technocraft (TRD japan)
TTE (no longer active, was TRD Europe > TTE > Toyota F1 >Toyota motorsports)
TRD Australia (Actually made TRD branded vehicles....)

And Lexus has the F sport line and the F performance vehicles.. what else exactly does Toyota "need" ?

TRD is to Mopar is to SVT is to SRT is to Nismo is to Mazdaspeed etc. etc. etc. If anything could be said, is that TRD USA needs to get their act together in terms of consumer products (can't really criticize them of the racing bit... they do a shit ton of excellent work in the professional motorsports arena).

p.d. TOM's and SARD share a similar relationship to Toyota as do Spoon & Mugen to Honda.

Tom's and SARD make some awesome IS parts I hope they get ahold of this vehicle

I found your examples way too confusing. I think what you're looking for is the equivalent of the 'M' division for BMW, and the AMG division for Mercedes Benz. These are all well recognized brands, and they produce a line of vehicles based on existing models. Both are wholly own subsidiaries of their respective parent companies. Also, Audi has Quattro GmbH, while VW has its R division.

I think the closest Toyota has is the TRD brand or the 'F' under Lexus. Perhaps TRD should just be marketed like AMG, so you could have a Scion FR-S TRD.

Personally, I don't think Toyota should do this until they have a couple of more performance models of existing vehicles. Otherwise, having a single vehicle and calling it a special "TRD" seems empty.

I don't think Toyota has spent enough time developing a performance oriented car in their lineup. It takes a lot of time build a performance brand and to gain the trust of their consumers; it just doesn't happen overnight.

Look at Honda and their Type-R brand. It started in ~1991 when they introduced their first NSX Type-R. Over time, Honda built the performance brand that everyone would trust. The ironic thing is that Honda is now starting to kill the Type-R brand. I believe they currently sell one Type-R and that's the Euro Civic.

Toyota has T-Sport, TTE and TRD.

Enough?

To understand this we should make the difference between a BRAND and a MARKETING BADGE. To answer to the question, Toyota does have a PERFORMANCE BRAND that is called TRD. Whether is has a MARKETING BADGE is another thing, I can't really answer this question. For example Audi Exclusive, Audi S-Line, Audi S and Audi RS are made by Quattro Gmbh, a sub-department of Audi. BMW Individual, BMW M Line and BMW M are made by BMW's sub-department, M GmbH. However in future BMW M and BMW i will be two stand alone sub-brands of BMW. And Mercedes markets its performance range under AMG GmbH.
Now to see what provokes confusion, take a look at the list of MARKETING BADGES, note, most badges are covered by only one brand. Surprisingly Lexus is the best example.

Main Brand:
Lexus (= BMW, Mercedes, Audi, VW, Honda, Subaru, Renault...)

Sub-Performance "Brand":
Lexus F Sport (= Audi S, VW GTI, Honda Type-S, Renault GT...)

Performance Brand:
Lexus F (= Audi RS, BMW M, VW R, Honda Type-R, Mercdes AMG, Subaru STI, Renault RS...)

Ultra-High Performance "Brand":
Lexus F ??? (LFA NRE, but no MARKETING NAME yet)(= BMW M CSL/GTS/CRT, Mercdes AMG Black Series, Subaru STI Spec,...)

Performance Line:
Lexus F-Line (= Audi S-Line, VW R-Line,...)

In-House Tuning Brand/Line:
Lexus TRD (= Honda Mugen, Nissan Nismo,...)

In-House Racing Brand/Line:
Lexus Gazoo (= BMW Motorpsort,...)

Aftermarket Tuning Brand:
Just aftermaket than specialize on some brands and are not affiliated in any way to the main brand even if sometimes relation can be created. Examples: Wald, Amuse, Brabus, G-Power, AC Schnitzer, MTM,...


I hope this helped.

which is like 99% of luxury car buyers :lol:

Wait what?

Who would've thought such a simple subject could be so complicated?

There are 2 types of performance brands

In house tuning divisions (TRD, F-Sport, Mopar, GM Racing, ect.)
All these divisions do is make performance parts for the company's road cars. They make things like exhausts, intakes, coilovers, ect. Sometimes they make different versions (Is-350 F-Sport) but usually only have light mods to the brakes, suspension, ect. and barley have any more horsepower. Currently, It seems Toyota has 2 of these, G Sports and TRD.

Performance Marques (F, AMG, ///M, Type R)
These divisions make trim lines or versions of cars that are far different than the original ones they produced. Usually they either put a larger engine or a Turbocharger in the car, bumping horsepower by 100 horsepower or more. Heavy modifications to the brakes, suspension, and frame are also commonplace. Think Dodge Neon vs SRT4, BMW 335i vs BMW M3, Lexus Is-350 vs Lexus Is-F. Honda Civic vs Honda Civic Type R. Currently Toyota only has Lexus F.

So, Do you think Toyota needs the second type of brand? The GT86 as it is looks like a good platform to tune on BUT I think there is room for improvement and I think Toyota knows that too. Toyota IMO should take the base hachiroku, add lightness somehow, put wider wheels/stickier tires, Turbo/swap,do something with the engine, change suspension to be even better, and draw out the raw potential this car has. If they do that however, they need a name for it. That way if they decide to make faster versions of different cars they can all use the same name. Kinda like how Honda started Type R with the NSX, Toyota could start something else with this car. I also think Toyota should make faster versions of the Corolla/Yaris. Dedicated sports cars are cool but not as practical as a sedan/hatchback. Especially if Toyota makes the faster GT86 ver. the lineup could fit nicely.

Corolla R and/or Yaris R= Around Civic Si in price, more practical.
GT86 R= High 20/low 30k, Dedicated Sports car, not as practical
Supra R= High 30/low 40k, Dedicated Sports car, more expensive.

I can't help. :sigh:


LexusFman made my explanation more simple.

Fixed

Don't often agree with what you have to say, but cheers to this post. :happy0180:

This is where this thread should have ended.

See TRD, S or GTS. SR5?

Hey, a man can dream right? I think I'm going to let this thread die now...