Toyota to introduce new sports car to U.S. market

Posted Aug 6th 2009 1:00PM by Brian White
Filed under: Products and Services, Competitive Strategy, Toyota Motor Corp. (TM)

Although Toyota Motor Corp. (NYSE: TM) has bypassed the now-out-of-bankruptcy General Motors as the largest automaker in the world, many of its cars in the U.S. market are, well, boring. It's true that fuel efficiency is now top-of-mind on the U.S. auto buyer's agenda, but the love for fast sports cars has never gone away. It's just been suppressed.

The new Camaro from GM is proof -- it's affordable, sexy, and a true sports car in its modern glory. It is amazing what having a desirable car can do for an automaker's image, even though one car does not make a company (far from it).

Well, Toyota is following in GM's footsteps here a bit, as Toyota President Akio Toyoda has indicated that the Japanese automaker wants to introduce an affordable sports car to the U.S. market to grab America's passion for speed and muscle in their cars.

Toyota's last real sports car was the Supra, which went away eons ago. Toyoda won't waste time, saying "I am very excited about it, and I plan to fast track it." Perhaps 2011 is the goal for introduction. Although automotive design takes time and testing can last well over a year, the economic landscape and the tastes of consumers change much faster than that.

Toyota probably started this effort in 2008 sometime and just announced it now -- if it is smart. The car, which will be built in tandem with competitive automaker Subaru, hopefully will be a true sports car, unlike the relatively underpowered Celica and Scion TC sports coupes it has had on the market for quite a while.

Tags: Akio Toyoda, Camero, Celica, General Motors, GM, inthenews, Scion TC, sports car, Subaru, TM, Toyota Motor Corp., Toyota sports car, Toyota Supra