Five years ago, we put the curvalicious, basted-in-cherry-red-paint backside of Toyota’s FT-1 concept on our cover (see that cover below). We haven’t had a better-selling March issue since—which explains why the highly anticipated production version of the FT-1 is our cover car this month.
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What is a surprise is how the excitement and anticipation for the return of Toyota’s legendary Supra has slowly given way to subtle shade and full-on Haterade from keyboard warriors on social media, the forum boards, and beyond. As more details of Supra’s co-development with BMW’s Z4 emerged, there were cries from Gardena to Bavaria to Kansai: Surely one shall pollute, or at least dilute, the other? Neither fish nor fowl, JDM nor DTM, what is this unholy union between Germany and Japan?
It’s smart, that’s what it is.
Toyota has been here before. Most recently in the Subaru + Toyota tie-up for the BRZ and 86 sports car. Chief engineer Tetsuya Tada led Toyota’s side of that joint venture, as he does now with BMW.
Pull back and examine how Toyota does business around the world, and you’ll find that it regularly enters into a wide range of partnerships with other OEMs both at home and abroad. For the Lexus LFA, Toyota worked with motorcycle and musical instrument maker Yamaha to build that supercar’s sonorous, superlative, and free-spinning V-10. What is now Tesla’s main production facility in Fremont, California, used to be New United Motor Manufacturing Incorporated, a plant, co-owned by General Motors and Toyota for 26 years, that produced everything from Geo Prizms and Pontiac Vibes to hundreds of thousands of Toyota Corollas and Tacomas.
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And let’s all remember who Toyota is teaming up with for its flagship sports car. This isn’t another Suzuki or Mazda tie-up for the econobox segment. This is BMW, not just the Ultimate Driving meisters but arguably the very best partner Toyota could have selected when it comes to Supra’s most foundational element: the straight-six engine.