Speculative Details Surrounding Toyota-Subaru Sports Car Emerge [Over The Back Fence]

The joint sports car effort between Toyota and Subaru has so far remained hugely secretive, but details are beginning to sneak out giving form to the highly anticipated venture. Several publications are making "informed guesses" about the basis for the car, assumed to be a shortened, two-door, two-seat version of the Subaru Legacy. Best guesses outfit the car with a 200 HP, 2.0-liter flat-four backed by a six-speed transmission and tipping the scales around 2,600 lbs. The word on all-wheel-drive is still out, but we'd bet the Subie would have it while the 'Yota may pass. Roll those specs around in your mind and try not to whisper the alphanumeric moniker "AE86." [Edmunds Straightline, Autocar, SevenTune]

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Modelista Tunes The Toyota iQ [Aftermarket Parts]

The Toyota iQ is the latest tiny car from the number one super best automaker from the land of the rising sun, and it's got a sharp, Japanese-interpreted Smart ForTwo look. Enter Modelista, a tuner who tends to modify cars for show more than go. The company has "upgraded" the iQ with yellow highlights, slightly modified bodywork, and...well, that's about it. Why? Justification of one's own existence, we assume.

[NihonCar]

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Video of Toyota Hybrid X Concept Car

Here’s the Toyota Hybrid X shown at this year’s Geneva Car Show in March. It’s a little too weird looking for my tastes, but this sucker’s supposed to get up to 110 miles to the gallon.

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The Future of Performance: Toyota’s FT-HS Concept

When Toyota came out to the 2007 NAIAS in Detroit with their High Performance hybrid concept, the auspiciously dubbed FT-HS, the mouths of the environmentally concious horsepower junkies must have started to salivate. With some brave and aggressive styling the FT-HS immediately imbodies speed, but with the promise of a hybrid 400-hp engine Toyota is promising some real punch to make it fast. That acceleration of zero-to-60 in the 4 seconds range is supposed to be matched with the protential of 28 mpg.

Unlike some of Toyota’s high speed concepts of the past (1967’s 2000GT and the 1990’s 4500GT), The FT-HS has received the green-light for prodcution. The car is reported to be targeted for the 2009 model year. The question then is will the final production model fulfill the promise of the concept? At the International Auto Show in Detroit in January Toyota associated their hybrid concept with the $30,000 auot bracket. Is that a price package Toyota can truly deliver?

Until the Toyota FT-HS becomes a reality the car and its hybrid engine are going to see a lot of coverage and conversation all over the in print and online. Can Toyota deliver? Time will tell. But until that time, let the speculation begin.

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The search is on for fuel efficient cars

There are many factors that we accept for the popularity of certain cars, like how many we see, what models, and who is buying what car and why, but since the internet has been with this has made the search for information on vehicles completely different and yet at the same time, we are able to get more information for ourselves on what everyone else is looking at and for what reasons.

Online car and vehicle sites such as Cars.com can show potential car buyers and sellers what the growing trends are simply because of the volume of business that goes through the site; this may be from sellers, buyers and even research being done by users of the site.

The top search terms for New Cars with largest increase in searches for April 2007 are.

Rank Vehicle Percentage

1. Honda Civic Hybrid 15%
2. Volkswagen Jetta 9%
3. Toyota Yaris 9%
4. Jeep Patriot 8%
5. Mercedes C-Class 7%
6. Toyota Prius 7%
7. BMW 335 7%
8. Ford Mustang 7%
9. Toyota Corolla 5%
10. Chevrolet Cobalt 4%

This is only one resource, clearly if someone is researching for data like this, then it should be done over more than just one site, by rather three or more, this would give a better average and allow the user to gain a far greater wide ranging result.

It is a bit of a surprise to find that the Prius is way down in sixth place; maybe they just go direct to the dealer as they already know what they are looking for!

Source [Automotive Blogger]

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GM and Toyota forming Hyrbid Collaboration

About a week ago, General Motors denied that it will be licensing the Synergy Drive hybrid system of Toyota. Over the weekend, there are rumors that Toyota might be pushing the Prius over to the GM camp and be re-branded wearing a GM badge.

The picture is not that clear especially when one considers the effort of GM in developing the Volt and the Buick crossover. But with the announcement of General Motors that it will be withdrawing from its partnership with Toyota at the NUMMI or New United Motor Manufacturing Incorporated, the move of re-branding the Prius may be a logical move.

The withdrawal was made after a final agreement as to which future product line up should be developed cannot be made between the two parties.

A spokesperson from GM North America informed the press that the joint venture between Toyota and their company has no future units planned for production.

The Prius though is already set for production at the California NUMMI plant since the plans of doing it at Mississippi did not materialize. The production at the NUMMI factory will also allow Prius to meet the increasing demand for hybrid vehicles.

The re-branding of the Toyota Prius is a great offer that might be too good to decline. Some worry though that with all the paper works, approval, and production, the re-branding of the Prius as a GM product may intersect with the timeline of the Volt which is due for release by late 2010. Toyota on the other hand is sure to be very happy with this development…

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