Toyota Motor Corporation's new president, Akio Toyoda, wants the brand his grandfather launched to add flavor and passion to its high-quality road appliances. And so, the Toyota scion who drove a Lexus LF-A to fourth-place in its class at the 24 Hours of Nurburgring spoke about a long-awaited "affordable sports car" at the Center for Automotive Research (CAR) Conference here Wednesday.
"I am happy to announce this morning that Toyota plans to build an exciting, fun-to-drive, affordable sports car and launch it within the next few years. I am very excited about it, and I plan to fast-track it," he said.
Meanwhile, Jim Lentz, president of Toyota's U.S. sales, confirmed that the coupe is the Toyota-Subaru joint-venture that has been in the news for a couple of years now. With Volkswagen having confirmed its BlueSport mid-engine Miata-fighter for production, will Toyota venture back into MR2/MR Spyder territory? Or does Toyoda consider a new-age Supra "affordable?"
As we reported here last month, the production version of the Lexus LF-A - not an "affordable" model -- will launch at the Tokyo Motor Show in late October and go on-sale in very small numbers by the middle of 2010.
We expect to find out more about the affordable sports car soon. Meanwhile, Toyoda also confirmed a plug-in version of the Toyota Prius hybrid before the end of the year, and a pure electric vehicle (probably based on the IQ) by 2012. "We're also making great progress on hydrogen fuel cell vehicles and hope to make this technology available and affordable for customers within the next half-dozen years," Toyoda said.
Thanks to: Motor Trend