Toyota deserves credit for its line of sports cars and manual-transmission offerings, but the Japanese auto giant isn’t planning to keep those efforts afloat by itself. Toyota Gazoo Racing (GR) president Tomoya Takahashi recently told reporters in Australia that the company would look to collaborations with other brands to continue making sports cars going forward.
“The sports car market is shrinking in the future. We cannot maintain sports cars as one brand, Toyota. Collaboration between brands will increase in the future. We don’t know with whom we’re going to collaborate.” The GR Yaris and GR Corolla are Toyota’s current in-house sports cars, while the GR86 and GR Supra were developed in partnership with Subaru and BMW, respectively.
Takahashi’s view is that working with other automakers increases Toyota’s chances of making the driver happy.
“It’s not for one manufacturer to survive, but to protect car enthusiasts,” he said.” “Our mission is to make car guys smile, so we need to collaborate sometimes.”
There’s no word on future GR vehicles, but Takahashi was clear that the brand wants to make fun cars, not vehicles focused on all-out speed. “Our target is not to make fast cars. Our target is to make fun cars,” he noted.
While it might seem like a bummer that Toyota would again lean on another manufacturer to build sports cars, the fact that it will continue focusing on fun cars is worthy of celebration. The GR Yaris and Corolla are great cars, but if the alternative is no Toyota sports cars, we should take the co-branded vehicles with a smile.
[Images: Toyota]
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