TwiBlueG35

How come I never see the automakers "plan" to make SUVs and crossovers. All of a sudden a new SUV would just pop into the market from nowhere. When it comes to "sports car" they need to plan for decades and eventually abandon the "plan" and let's make a boxy crossover instead. I am not too greedy, one or two true sports car from each automaker is enough, considering almost all of them each have at least two to three SUVs/crossovers besides three to four sedans. Look at Mazda, a relatively small automaker has MX-5 and RX-8, this must put Toyota to shame. Oh forgive me, Toyota does have one true sports car, that is Lexus LF-A which costs about 10 MX-5s and 10 RX-8s combined.

djyoshi626

iTrader: (5)

^ It's all about the market too, Toyota's vision has really been about being a MPG/reliability leader, if they suddenly dropped everything just to get a bite of the sports market (again) it would throw things out of whack. Especially with Hyundai being a legit competitor in this market, I think Toyota definitely needs to keep up with this market segment and branch out slowly, even though it's been slow enough.

MR_F1

^^ What he said. The flat 4 offers an amazing opportunity for compact packaging, extreme balance and very low center of gravity. Perfect for a sports car. Equal length headers (which the FT-86 will apparently come with) get rid of the burbly sound.

While I agree with you mostly, there aren't many sports cars that sell as much as the MX-5. Cars that don't ell stop getting made, so you can in fact blame the car buying public to an extent. Mazda have a winning formula with the MX-5 (cheap, fun), and I think the FT will be an extension to that.