Last April, Toyota and Subaru confirmed they were working on a new compact, rear-wheel-drive sport-coupe project for 2011, the car the industry has since fondly come to know as the "Toyobaru."
To be built by Subaru and based off a new Subaru-developed platform (converted to rear-wheel drive), the sports car will also run with Subaru's prized boxer 2.0-liter engine. There will be both Toyota and Subaru versions of the car, each looking different but with the same normally aspirated flat-4 engine under the hood.
Japan's influential Nikkei business newspaper ran a headline story in December, meantime, claiming that in the wake of the severe market meltdown, the Toyobaru was being postponed.
Toyota and Subaru had decided to delay the start of production, the paper claimed, with production now "likely to be postponed to 2012 or later."
Both representatives from Toyota and Subaru's press offices in Tokyo have recently denied the story. "The project is still on track, according to the info I have on hand," says a Toyota spokesperson.
What has changed is the production site. The original idea was for Subaru to build a completely new factory in Oizumi, in Japan's Gunma prefecture, to build the car. But the economic crisis has now prompted Subaru to can that project, so the Toyobaru, when it is built, will be made inside Subaru's long-serving Gunma main plant, which is now due to be refurbished.
Inside Line says: Something good to look forward to. — Peter Nunn, Correspondent
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