KEY POINTS:
Subaru and Toyota are set to collaborate on a new rear-drive sports coupe, to go on sale in 2011. The car will be based on a Subaru platform and boast the company's trademark horizontally-opposed "boxer" engine layout.
Subaru's parent company, Fuji Heavy Industries (FHI), will also build a new assembly plant in Oizumi-machi, Gunma prefecture, and restructure its vehicle manufacturing operations to accommodate the coupe. Subaru's current engine and transmission plant is already based in Gunma.
Toyota is seeking Japanese regulatory approval to double its shareholding in FHI to 16 per cent. Toyota bought its current 8 per cent share in Subaru's parent company in 2005 from General Motors.
Subaru, Toyota and Daihatsu, which is partially owned by Toyota, are to expand their co-operative ties in other areas as well.
Toyota will provide Subaru with a compact car on an original-equipment manufacturing (OEM) basis, and Daihatsu is to supply Subaru with mini-vehicles and a Subaru version of the Daihatsu Materia compact car on an OEM basis.
The announcements are the latest development in a relationship established in October 2005, in which Toyota and Subaru have applied their mutual management resources in research and development, and production. The relationship has resulted in production of the Toyota Camry for North America at Subaru's Indiana Automotive factory in the US, and OEM production for the European market.
