Subaru Sports Car Venture With Toyota ‘Iconic Project’
Subaru officials say the spirit of collaboration was the primary motivator behind the joint development of the cars, but admit cost-savings was an important consideration in creating a niche vehicle.
December 14, 2011
TOCHIGI, JAPAN – The jointly developed rear-wheel-drive sports cars due next year from Toyota and Subaru bring together two very different auto makers.
Toyota is Japan’s largest car company and in recent years has held the top spot in world sales. Subaru, which is expecting 300,000 U.S. deliveries for 2011, is one of the world’s smallest OEMs.
Toyota holds a 16.5% stake in Subaru and builds the Camry at Subaru’s Lafayette, IN, plant for the U.S. market, while its Daihatsu subsidiary supplies minicars to Subaru in Japan.
But the joint development of the Subaru BRZ and Toyota 86/Scion FR-S is new territory for the partners. The cars are a result of a desire for “some iconic project for the alliance,” Toshio Masuda, BRZ senior project general manager, tells WardsAuto during a recent media event here.
While a number of vehicle types were considered, a sports car was chosen due to Toyota’s admiration of Subaru’s boxer engine. “Toyota loved the benefit of the boxer engine, because everyone knows (it) is synonymous with a low center of gravity,” Masuda says through an interpreter.
Subaru says the two auto makers easily agreed on powertrain specifications. Recent reports suggest Subaru was resistant to using Toyota’s D4S port- and direct-injection system because it requires premium fuel. But a Subaru engineer says D4S adds at least 10 hp and should prevent clatter at startup in colder weather.
Subaru led the engineering for the cars. The 2.0L, all-aluminum boxer 4-cyl. engine has an 86 x 86 mm bore and stroke, a 12.5:1 compression ratio, 197 hp and 150 lb.-ft. (203 Nm) of torque. The 6-speed manual and automatic transmissions are supplied by Aisin.
Masuda says the partners wanted to express “in the purest and simplest form, the benefit of the boxer engine.” For that reason, they did not employ Subaru’s turbocharging or add all-wheel drive to the vehicles.
Meetings between engineers and designers followed two to three years of discussions between the auto makers’ business-planning divisions regarding the sports cars.
Engineers sometimes met “more than five days a week,” Masuda says, traveling six hours to make the 311-mile (500-km) trip between Toyota City near Nagoya and Subaru’s Gunma prefecture headquarters north of Tokyo to hammer out the engineering, design and manufacturing details.
The meetings were necessary for both sides to understand the other’s processes, says Atoshi Atake, Subaru global marketing manager, noting the auto makers’ vehicle-development methods were at odds.
“Subaru’s way is to come up with a whole-clay model first,” Atake says. But Toyota starts with a concept only. “No model, no sketches, just an idea. They fix that concept. Then the starting designer works on the sketch, and (then) the clay model. So that’s a totally different approach for us.”
Compromise was achieved by adopting Toyota’s initial process and then “melding” Subaru’s approach into later steps. “Otherwise, it’s very difficult to develop the whole vehicle with our standards,” Atake says.
Toyota’s stylists worked around Subaru engineers’ requirements regarding vehicle height and other metrics.
While the production models appear to look alike, there are slight differences. “The initial concept was a 100% identical car, no difference at all,” spokesman Michael McHale says. “So when it came closer to launch, the marketing guys said, ‘can we have a little differentiation, please?’”
Atake says in comparing the BRZ with the 86/FR-S, the shape of the headlamps is similar but their internals are different. They also have different front bumpers. Inside, the seat materials vary. Subaru expects its version to be the only model to have a standard navigation system.
Subaru officials say the spirit of collaboration was the primary motivator behind the joint development of the similar cars, although they acknowledge cost savings was an important major consideration in developing a niche vehicle.
“If you look at the history of Nissan, Honda, Toyota – all have sports cars that are now gone, because of the (low) sales volume,” Atake says. “So spreading the costs and doubling the sales is a good way to produce this kind of project.”
Had Subaru, with its AWD sedan and wagon models, undertaken the RWD BRZ on its own, the car’s production would have been very slim, McHale says.
Subaru, which is manufacturing all three models at its Ohta, Gunma prefecture, plant, has not specified the number of units it can build on its dedicated line. The auto maker said earlier it hoped to deliver about 5,000 BRZs in the U.S. annually. But sales targets for other markets, and for the Toyota and Scion variants, are less clear.
Subaru expects eventually to build its Impreza compact car on the same line as the BRZ/86/FR-S, McHale says, boosting output.
Atake does not discount further joint-vehicle development between Subaru and Toyota, especially as both sides have invested in the Ohta facililty. Interested buyers already are asking about convertibles and turbocharged versions of the three new models.
“There are many more possibilities to come, I think,” he says.
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