Quote:
Originally Posted by RicerX
My biggest hangup is this - how many "halo sports cars" are out there built almost entirely by another automaker?
GT-R - 100% Nissan. Corvette - 100% GM. Ford GT... Mercedes AMG GT... Acura NSX... Porsche anything... BMW M... Audi R8 (platform shared with a sister automaker, ok...)... Even Subaru's halo car is 100% Subaru in the WRX/STI.
This is the new Supra's problem - it's the brand's performance beacon and they've basically presented their potential as a performance brand being dependent on an automaker who actually builds performance cars. As a brand, pride has to take the front seat for products like this. It's literally the one/only product where it is OK to take a monetary hit to fulfill that.
The pretense of a halo car is "if external factors were not an object, this is what we build without compromise". The message Toyota has sent here is "we want to look like we give a ****, so here's a BMW dressed up as the part." Whether that was the intent or not, that's how it comes across.
People would have bought a pure Supra for $100k. Without question. However, they will find people to buy these things, and as buyers, we can control the idea that we'll buy something if you just pretend it's to the standard you prefer as a buyer.
I am happy to see this car for no other reason than if it serves as proof the sports car market can still live IN SPITE OF the corner cutting that has to be done to bring something like this to market. That's the only point of optimism I have with this thing. Otherwise, it serves as precedent to pumping out nostalgia without the substance becoming acceptable.
If someone tells me "we'll make another Z car, but we gotta buy the entirety of it from Volkswagen or we can't do it," I will say to them "kill the Z with fire."
I appreciate what BMW can build, but what I further appreciate is BMW always did it on their own steam. The M cars are in-house, fully envisioned and executed, and unmistakably BMW.
Let's say the new Supra sets the Earth on fire with its performance, is that Toyota's accomplishment? Or is it BMW's? If that's your halo car, you cannot create the opportunity that someone else can take the credit.
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Well spoken.
Although there are blurred lines in the automotive world that make this distinction harder and harder. The Ford GT you mention isn't actually BUILT by Ford, although it's their design and drive train. The Alfa 4C is constructed on a Maserati line, with it's party-trick carbon tub built by a supplier entirely outside of the FCA empire. The Porsche Taycan will essentially be the Audi e-Tron.
But to take a BMW rolling stock plus interior and house it under unique sheet metal does not a true "halo" car make. It's just a way of cheaply generating a new volume seller whilst prostituting a storied badge. the only enthusiasts it was meant to please are stockholders. I hope it lives up to the hype for those who buy the car and not the company.
The question, as someone here so wisely commented earlier in this thread, is whether you are buying BMW performance with Toyota reliability and operating costs, or the other way around. That will be the telling part of the new Supra story, and one we won't know for some time.
I do wish them luck with it. We need more antidotes to self-driving people-movers for the lobotomized. This is a bold venture that was going to be doomed to criticism from the start. Show 'em they're wrong, Toyota!