Controlled Information Leaks
 

To keep interest high on the new RWD Toyota, Toyota is excercising a controlled leak of official information. The Japanese magazines are privy to these- so read and monitor the various websites.

The car is at least 2 years away.

2 years :( That's a long wait.

But hopefully after the concept is shown at the Tokyo Motor Show, Toyota will keep our appetites whet with regular information on the production version. But yea, 2011 seems so far away.

Nice, any particular magazines we should pay attention to?

That's not really news, IMHO. Seems like cars like this always have planned official news leaks to keep people interested (i.e., GTR, 370Z, the Camaro SS, etc etc)

Regardless, it's working on me! :)

Could be sooner than that, the 2011 mustang will be rolling off the line in the spring of next year...

Then again, they said 2011 for this car, they didn't specify a model year, and toyota might not be ahead in model years like ford

Hopefully some decent amount of information is revealed during TAS '09. An approximate curb weight and some engine specs would be nice :p

2 years?! thats way too long, they gotta put priority on production of this car if their president Toyoda really means what he says and wants to bring the glory back to the company

It should be available late 2011, which means it would technically be the 2012 model year...

But who really knows, this concept has been on-and-off for so long, they've got lots of development time in already.

The early reports from '07 said we'd be driving them in the summer of '08. It appears the overal concept has changed somewhat since then, but the basics are all still in place and I'd guess that means the necessary development was done previously as well. Maybe with the weak dollar they'll step up their game and get it here sooner rather than later.

The latest concept certainly looked close to production-ready aside from the interior. I can't imagine Toyota is in the mood to be wasting money on useless concepts now that it's sales tanked like everyone else!

Keep in mind Toyota's track record:

Scion T2B - Concept released March 2005, new xB released June 2007 (little over 2 years)
Scion ccX - Concept released January 2003, tC released June 2004 (little over 1 year, and supposedly it was a record for concept to production in only 13 months)

At first glance this "concept" looked almost production ready, but when you really look hard at it, you can see it's definitely8 a one-off concept as opposed to any type of pre-production. There's also the question as to the engine, as supposedly that's one of the things that's held up development so far. So unfortunately, late 2011 could definitely be a relatively accurate guess.

The XYR Concept, which was 99% the same as the production 7th Celica, was debuted at the 1999 Toyko Motor Show; the 7th Celica was released in late 1999 - early 2000.

If they follow the same pattern for the FT-86, which looks about 95-99% production ready, it should be released by late 2011 - early 2012.

And that's pretty much what they've been claiming is the target for release.

Time flies nowadays. Look at it this way, GT4 came out in 2005 on the PS2, and that was more than 4 years ago. I think 2 years isn't so bad, especially since we can drive a virtual one in GT5 this march!

That's a good point forgot about this thing being a driveable car in GT5! I'm gonna go watch that trailer again :) I thought the game was coming out this holiday season tho:confused:

It was originally planned for this holiday season but this isn't the first time Polyphony Digital has delayed GT5. They said it was mainly due to the addition of damage models in the game. Also parts of the car such as the engine bay may be revealed as well (ie. damage to the hood), so the developers had to make damage possible on the engines as well. That's something I read a few weeks ago.

How fast (or slow) time feels will probably also have to do with how much info/images Toyota decides to leak or release during the presumed 2 years until production. The new Camaro felt like it took 10 years from concept to production for everyone because they kept on being photographed in spy pics and GM probably leaked some pics too. Every other day there was a new image or sighting so by the end of 2 years it seemed like ages since the concept was shown. So it's sort of a catch 22 with this car - while I hope Toyota gives us info and teasers from time to time, overexposure of information could make it seem like a LONG wait.

But yea, in the end I still hope to get more info and images (than less) before the production is shown :D

Has Toyota officially mentioned or hinted at the likely release dates or is this speculation by the internet? Would be nice if they officially mentioned it cause it would signal that they're pretty set on making a production version and that this isn't just a wild concept they put out there to gauge the public's interest in deciding whether to make it or not.

I hate vaporware, especially when it's something this nice that I want bad!

http://www.edmunds.com/insideline/au...yopreview.html

"Toyota has spoken of late 2011 for a first on-sale date, at least for its version of the coupe."

=(

That was pretty much what everyone was expecting right? Is this a Japanese sale date or worldwide I wonder. And wonder if it'll go on sale in Japan first.

I was just answering Kenji's question. Hopefully it's a worldwide release or U.S. & asia region heh.

Ah. Oh boy it's going to be a long 2 year wait :eek:

make sense. hype up the interest. get people saving for it. then release to market.

no good if people want it, but no money.

They've done a good job with the hype so far... just look at this place and how many of us there already are. The FT-86's pics just came out 10 days ago!

Just wait until this car is shown at the TOkyo Motorshow for an entire week, the buzz is gonna be nuts.

Heh... well at least I got 6 months out of the 2 year wait covered...

I don't have time to think too much in basic training/ AIT

My bet? Late 2010. We've had a massive amount of pictures and stuff splattered over the net. These aren't just spy shots, we've had images released to the net, by Toyota, a week before the concept was due to be shown. They want everyone watching the Tokyo Motor Show specifically for further information on this car. I would not be suprised if they have a date they're going to announce on which the car will hit Japanese showrooms, or at very little confirmation that it's going into production (which lets face it, hasn't been confirmed yet).

This is a bit further along than most concept cars I've seen. How many have you seen that have the detail this one has, like "SRS Airbag" stamped into the plastic mould over the horn on the steering wheel. ABS and traction control buttons would be easy to do, but actually put "SRS Airbag" into the horn button would take a lot of effort most would not invest in a concept if it wasn't meant to be a production concept.

I think a lot of the talk of 2 years would be a worst case scenario. Early 2011 at the worst would be my guess. And hope, lol.

This whole thread is funny. Knowing about this car since 09 wow the anticipation would of killed me!

way to bump a 3-4 year old thread.. wtf.

Ididitforthelulz