Engineers Behind The Toyota Supra Haven't Spoken To BMW In Four Years

You probably don't need to worry about the Toyota Supra and BMW Z4 being too similar to drive, as the teams behind each haven't spoken since 2014...
Engineers Behind The Toyota Supra Haven't Spoken To BMW In Four Years

The new Z4 and the incoming A90 Supra may be born from the same joint venture, but we can expect the cars to be very different from one another. People from both BMW and Toyota have been insisting as much for a while now, but the projects look to have deviated even further than expected.

Supra Assistant Chief Engineer told CNET that his team hasn’t spoken to BMW’s in four years. They last spoke in 2014, a couple of years on from the start of the partnership.

He said: “We agreed on the packaging, like where is the hip-point of the driver, what’s the wheelbase, the width, where’s the fuel tank, where’s the A-pillar, this was around the middle of 2014… After that, we completely separated our team. After that, no communication with each other.”

A lightly camouflaged Toyota Supra prototype made its debut at the Goodwood Festival of Speed
A lightly camouflaged Toyota Supra prototype made its debut at the…

The basic platform is the same and many components - including the engines, which will be BMW’s - are shared, but this long separation between the two companies should result in two cars with very distinct personalities. It certainly won’t be like Toyota’s last sports car joint project, which spawned the almost identical GT86 and Subaru BRZ.

The lengthy disconnect between BMW and Toyota’s teams would certainly explain why each seems to be working to a different schedule. The Z4 was the first of the two cars to be fully revealed, making its debut during Monterey Car Week last month. As for the Supra, it was previewed by a lightly camouflaged prototype at the Goodwood Festival of Speed, but we may be waiting until the Detroit Motor Show before seeing the car in full.

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Comments

Anonymous

Everyone knows it doesn’t matter about the suspension or power , these cars will be getting modified straight out the showroom like the gt86 and GTRs

09/20/2018 - 22:12 |
1 | 1
Anonymous

The problem I see with the Z4 and A90 venture is that you can’t have both a coupe and a manual transmission.. A shame really. Z4 Coupe would’ve been badass but hopefully Toyota will just ask BMW to give them the same manual transmission and all purists will be happy.

09/20/2018 - 22:22 |
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Anonymous

BMW or Toyota Reliability tho…

09/20/2018 - 22:38 |
0 | 0
Anonymous

In reply to by Anonymous (not verified)

Definatly toyota reliability

09/21/2018 - 04:38 |
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Black Phillip
09/20/2018 - 22:40 |
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Anonymous

that is exactly how i would imagine if Germany engineer and Japan engineer would have work together…Both goes their own separate ways, both have their own view on perfection….

09/21/2018 - 04:11 |
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Anonymous

Take this with a grain of salt. I’ve heard some conflicting stuff from a BMW designer I know, can’t go into detail though.

09/21/2018 - 07:03 |
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Anonymous

In reply to by Anonymous (not verified)

tell me more! you just bombed me

09/21/2018 - 13:58 |
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Anonymous

I don’t think this article quite gets the point… The spoke with each other at the beginning and after that bmw developed the whole thing.
Just look at the interviews from Z4. They said something like “toyota ordered a sports car and bmw developed it for them”
Just look at the number of supra test mules in and around munich…

09/21/2018 - 07:24 |
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Mr Q

Please tell me that since BMW are letting me down, Toyota will at least make a manual version of it?

09/28/2018 - 14:42 |
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