Toyota considering building smaller rear-wheel drive sports car
The Japanese car maker is seriously looking into the possibility of making a smaller rear-wheel drive vehicle to place below the Toyota 86 as part of its three sports car family.
Tatsuya Tada – chief engineer and leader of Toyota’s sports car division – confirmed that the company is already working on smaller and larger sports vehicles.
According to him, Akio Toyoda – the company’s CEO and president – is in favor of both models going into production but till the present time neither of them has gotten an official green light. Tada has also been put in charge of the Toyota Supra resurrection project so that another chief engineer has taken the smaller sports car project.
When the financial viability of a rear-wheel drive platform for only a smaller sports vehicle was brought into discussion, Tada said that the company has the expertise and efficiency to make the project work.
He argued that while it sounds like a difficult project – making a rear wheel drive smaller sports car for a new platform, the company has learned a lot from the 86 project and Toyota overall has a lot of experience in terms of technology and development when it comes to developing cars in an efficient and cost effective manner.
Admitting that it is still a big challenge, they do have quite a lot of skill and experience in the field, even if the high expense of the overall project could prove to be a lot for any other manufacturer. Tada is very confident in Toyota’s ability to come through with this project.
Assuming that the project is successful one can predict that considering its positioning below the 86, and if it were to go into production in the next few years, this new vehicle would most likely become the most affordable rear-wheel drive sports car in the world.
