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Originally Posted by AIRMAX
^^ of course you cant.
Re-designing a platform isnt simply making a 4WD to a RWD through change of assembly and modifying CAD. Lol, only ifs that easy, car companies will be cranking out cars every year off the same platforms.
Platform/Chassis engineering takes a long time. Your looking at around 12 months or even a bit longer, depending on evaluation results. Also depending on what is trying to be accomplished.
Toyota/Subaru collaboration saves them MILLIONS of dollars by "working" on an existing platform.
You have to realize this.
Platform sharing is GOLDMINE for OEMs as of recent times.
ALL passenger cars have a basic shape of skeleton.
Then you add in the underbody, with the 2 HUGE bars that run along from the engine bay all the way pass the RR wheel area, this is the main support of the body. The design of these bars can vary from car to car. But the Skeleton is like a template, its a very basic shape, that many cars have similar shapes. The variance will be the track width and length... and of course if its a FR engine, RR engine or MR engine....
Under body + Chassis differentiates the cars, but the skeleton shape is true to its name... skeleton.
At the very start of the FT-86 project 2 years ago, I recall Toyota/Subaru announce that the car will be based on a modified Impreza platform. From a normal person that sounds like they will modify the Impreza platform/skeleton/underbody/chassis to make it RWD....
But lol, you dont employ upto 30 engineers and give them 12+ months to simply modify it. There are metal parts that carry over, there are new reinforcements that are needed, hence development of new parts. But it still saves them a ton of MONEY by using a basic template... if you know what I mean... because that template already has been researched and its limitation and capabilities known. Most importantly, they dont have to find a new plant to produce it.... its a simple minor change in the assembly/manufacturing line and VOILA... a new chassis.
This car wouldnt be possible, if Toyota/Subaru cant use already existing heavy metal parts.... TOOLING costs in the tens of Millions for new ones. Considering this car is a NICHE market... its no Camry or Corolla where investing 100 Million on new platform will pay itself within a year...
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I understand what you're saying, but expect that you're wrong.
You are making an assumption that by making a new car, they don't want to make a new car. See what I'm getting at?
I would have to look for the exact post, but I'm pretty sure the words "all new" have been used.
This is supposed to be a LIGHTWEIGHT sports coupe, and platform sharing is generally not the way to go for this as the base "skeleton" you talk about has to be made strong (heavy) enough for the largest vehicle using the shared platform. In your example, a Legacy. This is one of the reasons for the weight of the Nissan Z car. Its FM platform was used for almost every Infinity RWD and AWD car and crossover SUV,
Opposite situation is the Miata, a dedicated single platform car, that is low sales volume, but also very light by today's standards.
Given the stated objectives of the FT86 (Light weight has been often repeated) leads me to hope that they are going the Miata route. One of the reasons that this makes sense is that the chassis will be shared by the two companies, reducing some of the cost/risk making the shared platform idea less necessary.