KEY POINTS:
Toyota and Subaru have announced that they are investigating a jointly-designed small sports car.
The car would be made by Toyota, but powered by a Subaru flat-four engine.
That means that it will probably not be based on any existing Toyota - Subaru's unique engine will not easily fit in any chassis designed for a conventional transverse engine.
The idea is to sell the car at a low price of under $20,000 although prices in Japan are lower than Europe, so we should not get too excited at the idea of a very cheap sports car coming here.
Toyota now owns 8.7% of Subaru and is keen to look at ways of taking advantage of its position.
- REUTERS
