Subaru and Toyota get in on same sports coupe act

Subaru and Toyota have got their collective heads together and outlined plans for a jointly-manufactured all-new small sports coupe to hit the car buying market at the tail end of 2010. Although both Japanese auto-makers may initially appear to be odd bedfellows, a mooted sports car union isn't that far-fetched given the sports coupe lineage of both.

Especially when explained.

Subaru spend most of its time making largely bland saloons go faster. Once they've perfected awesome engines they add all sort of body kits, slap a WRX sticker on the boot and let the PR people take over.

Toyota, whilst focusing on producing cars for people with pension plans and sensible shoes, occasionally let imaginations run riot and construct stand-alone coupes with sweeping lines and almost menacing looks. So the indications are good.

And how did all this come about? Well, Subaru's parent company is called Fuji Heavy Industries and has rubber-stamped the majority of the manufacturer models if buyers care to look beneath the bonnet, as they are in the business of providing the get-up-and-go for Subaru.

History lesson aside, Toyota has recently snapped up a lot more shares in Fuji Heavy Industries than they had previously, which of course means they have a lot more clout in what, essentially, Subaru get up to behind closed doors. That's how we arrive at two separate rear-wheel driven coupes, styled, marketed and badged individually. To our knowledge, paneling and interior layout will adopt the same stance, yet the Toyota and Subaru will sport distinctive front and rear ends.

So the coin was tossed and Subaru called tails to Toyota's heads. Which meant they have concentrated on the all-new coupes Impreza underpinnings, whilst Toyota were charged with garnishing the whole affair in a Celica-esque manner. The perfect coupling you would think. Especially after moving on from the original Toyota Paseo replacement whispers.

Sculpting its flat-four, 2.0-litre (175bhp) Boxer engine, Subaru may even throw in its all-wheel-drive system for good measure on the 2.5-litre Celica GT4-inspired range-topping future coupe.

Subaru will get to show the world the fruit of it and Toyota's loins first in late 2010, a few months before Toyota's launch party consumates this new found admiration. America will be the first to witness either variant in 2011, with the rest of the world awaiting further instruction.

In fact, the crucial details such as spec is particularly thin on the ground at this stage, although £20,000 is being rumoured price-wise. Quite what will materialize, when and where could easily be subject to change given that production is scheduled to start at Subaru's new factory in Japan ASAP. A factory that's currently more field-like than plant-like.

What is set in stone however is Toyota cobbling together a compact car for Subaru as a successor to the Justy, and Daihatsu (who Toyota have more than a passing interest in) set to build several minuscule city cars on behalf of Subaru sometime in the foreseeable.