Toyota/Subaru Confirms RWD Sports Coupe for 2011
Ever since the Supra, Celica, and MR-2 were canceled Toyota has pretty much abandoned performance for bland cars like the Camry, Corolla, and Prius. Well by the end of the decade that should be set to change as Toyota officially confirmed that they are currently jointly developing a RWD sportscar with Subaru on April 10, 2008. Each brand would be set to get its own version of the car, set to be powered by one of Subaru’s boxer engines. So far all we have is the above sketch courtesy of Autocar, but
the car will probably harken back to the days of the AE86 Corolla as popularized by countless drift crazy drivers and the anime Initial D. Therefore it’s probably safe to expect a lightweight car of about 2500 pounds or less, the aforementioned rear wheel drive system, and about 120-150 horsepower with a turbocharged variant possible. The car will be trading brute power for superior driving dynamics, but that’s always been a recipe for great fun as proven by the Lotus Elise. The best part, however, is that the new Toyobaru/Subota should be very inexpensive, coming in below $20,000 and hopefully maybe even under $15,000.
To differentiate the models between brands I would suggest that Toyota get the RWD model and Subaru develop a 4WD version more in line with their brand philosophy. Also I would assume that each brand will get a slightly altered design as opposed to simple badge engineering. Either way I guess this means I’ll be waiting until 2011 before I finally get my car. While the previous sketch is probably close to what the car will look like, here are plenty of speculative renderings from other sources as well.
Courtest of Best Car :
I think the silver one looks particularly good out of these two renderings.
And courtesy of 7Tune :
These renderings I think look the best and other than the rear looking a little Ford Fusion-ish to me I would not be disappointed at all if the car ended up looking like this.
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