Toyota Unlikely to Launch New Sports Car Alone, Focus on Cooperation

TapTechNews June 19th news, it seems unlikely that Toyota will launch a brand new sports car solely developed by itself anymore. The Japanese automaker believes that collaborating with other brands is a better strategy for building such models.

TapTechNews has noticed that although Toyota has independently launched GRYaris and GRCorolla previously, GR86 was jointly developed with Subaru, while GRSupra is the result of cooperation with BMW. Recently, Tomoya Takahashi, the head of the GR department, said in an interview that the cooperation model will be the direction of future development.

I want to work with a smile, he told Australian automotive media CarsGuide. If I'm not happy, how can I make customers satisfied? The future sports car market is shrinking. It is impossible for Toyota alone to maintain sports car production, and cooperation between brands will be more frequent in the future. As for who we will cooperate with, we still don't know now.

Earlier this year, a Japanese media reported that Toyota is developing the next-generation MR2 sports car. The report pointed out that the new car may debut as early as the end of 2025 and will be equipped with the same 1.6-liter turbocharged three-cylinder engine as GRCorolla and GRYaris.

But Tomoya Takahashi's remarks seem to negate this news. Previously, people thought the new MR2 would be a Toyota self-developed project, but the financial department inside Toyota seems not interested in launching a new sports car single-handedly. If the GR department has not determined the future partner yet, then the next-generation MR2 may be indefinitely postponed until Toyota finds the right automaker to collaborate with to become a reality.

This is not a battle for the survival of one manufacturer, but to allow car enthusiasts to continue enjoying the fun of driving, Tomoya Takahashi added. Our mission is to make people who love racing smile, so sometimes we need to work together.