Sportscars the new flavour: Toyoda

The company that arguably started the mainstream greening of the automobile, Toyota, is back in the business of building cars... Real cars... Sports cars.

Under the new leadership of founding family member Akio Toyoda, Toyota was the star of a below-par Tokyo Motor Show this week, headlining its mass market brand and Lexus flagship ranges with serious sportscar entrants at either end of the financial spectrum. And the spotlight on the new driver-focused vehicles was deliberate -- and calculated.

The long-awaited production version of the LFA was the undisputed star of the biennial Tokyo Show which this year had shrunk from five halls to a padded-out three. Simply, the new Lexus flagship would not have seen the light of day as a production car save for Toyoda's personal patronage.

Meantime, over at Toyota, the co-Subaru developed FT-86 is proof positive of a return to focus on the fun end of the automotive spectrum for the world's most successful carmaker. And remember, this at a time when the global financial crisis has bitten deep into the coffers of the company... Toyoda's words at his Toyota and Lexus presentations should translate to all as a step-change in the mindset of the manufacturer. The new boss talked about automobiles needing to regain their flavour. It was a theme he returned to throughout his addresses. Indeed, if Toyoda is true to his word, his company is out of the white goods business. At the very least in mindset...

Insiders confide that Toyoda has helped the corporation quickly understand that eco-credentials alone will only take Toyota so far. While you should not expect the hybrid pioneer to turn its back on green cars any time soon (the other Toyota releases at Tokyo were a purpose-built EV and a plug-in Prius), there is a growing realisation that Toyota's eco-advantage -- perceived or otherwise -- will not last. It will attract its next generation of buyers not with bland eco-credentials but with sugar and spice.

"It is often said that young people have drifted away from cars," Toyoda commented, "but I feel it may not be the customers who have drifted from cars, but us, the manufacturers. For this reason, I believe it is the mission of automakers to provide the fundamental excitement of automobiles to customers, regardless of the era".

Toyoda called his LFA and FT-86: "models that can be said to embody the fundamental joy of automobiles".

"The FT-86 Concept was developed to give form to the intrinsic joy automobiles provide -- things like the accelerator and steering exactly matching the driver's intentions and the feeling of wanting to drive more," he stated.

"I personally participated in the 'flavouring' of the LF-A from its earliest development stages. I believe that the ultimate Lexus provides the paramount flavour sought by people intimately familiar with real things, and once they experience that flavour, it stays with them for the rest of their life.

"This type of quality and appealing flavour has been built into the LFA. Tackling every challenge to the very limit in the development of the LFA ensures that technologies and skills will be handed down and incorporated -- no matter how times changes. This is the proper course for automobile manufacturing," Toyoda opined.

Confirmed for production for the 2011 model year, the mass-market FT-86 is arguably even more indicative of Toyota's significant change of direction than the $700K Lexus supercar.

"Toyota wants to pursue environmental [friendliness] and playfulness of cars -- they are the two [new] major pillars [of the brand]. This [FT-86] is the car that focuses on the fun aspect," Chief Engineer of the FT-86 project, Tetsuya Tada, told a small contingent of Australian media.

"In the environmental performance area, I think in a few years' time, all other companies will start to catch up with Toyota and when that time comes, what are the sort of things customers will decide their purchase upon? They would say if they have the same environmental performance, they will look for something more fun and the fun [aspect] of a car is not something you can create very quickly.

"The know-how we accumulate in developing these sorts of cars will disperse to other cars across the Toyota range and become the main thing that will create victory for Toyota. That in turn becomes the flavour the President [Toyoda] has been talking about," Tada stated.

Local new car buyers won't need to wait until after the 2011-12 launch of the production version of the FT-86 to experience the changes in the brand, however, say local Toyota sources.

Toyota Australia product chief Peter Evans says Toyoda began influencing the company's direction even before his elevation to the top role. Appointed to an Executive Vice President role around a year or so before his move into the top job, Toyoda quickly went to work.

"In anticipation of his ascendancy, he already had an impact in the way that products were considered and how markets were considered. He's a big supporter of regionalisation... Given the regions of the world more say [in product planning]," Evans told the Carsales Network.

"I think Toyoda-san will take us out of the fridge business. [He's] Somebody who ran the Nurburging 24 hour in a Corolla twin cam and in LFA, and is internally known as the father of FT-86 -- I think it's a pretty strong indication that he understands that cars need to be more than just A-to-B transportation; that they've got to interact with your emotions and create an emotional as well as a rational benefit.

"Excitement's probably the top of the tree and in the FT-86 that's absolutely appropriate but even in the other models I think what he's trying to say is [it's about] creating some engagement and interest, rather than just churning out transportation."

And Evans suggests we won't have to wait until the 2011-12 introduction of the production version of FT-86 to see the change.

"We've got some products planned that are pre FT-86 in terms of timing that we think will add to the brand that we're waiting to confirm but we're certainly on the list to get.

"They're not obscure tiny segments, but they're not Corolla segments either... But in terms of 'brand' models in the next few years, we've got some good opportunities."

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