Toyota and Subaru. What’s Going on There?
Partnerships and alliances are what makes everything so much more copasetic. The cohesiveness of two parties coming together to form a partnership means that good things are coming for consumers who are interested. A partnership that our namesake has been involved in for quite some time is with Subaru. Remember the Subaru BRZ? Or the Scion FR-S? Well, you probably know it better by its modern name, the Toyota 86, but that was one of the first new Toyota vehicles to be produced as a collaboration between Toyota and Subaru.
Since then, Toyota and Subaru have worked collaboratively on several projects and then solidified their partnership with high-level investments in each others’ corporations. While what we just told you was an abridged version, there are a lot of finer details to unpack regarding the long-term partnership between Toyota and Subaru and what that means for new Toyota models. Dive in with us at Toyota of North Charlotte right here!
Toyota & Subaru. A Match Has Been Made
Before we get into the modern new Toyota projects Toyota and Subaru are plotting, a little history is needed first. Fuji Heavy Industries (FHI, for short) is Subaru’s parent company and some of its shares were purchased by Nissan way back in 1968. Fast forward to 1999 and Nissan eventually liquidated its shares in FHI and sold them to General Motors (GM) who collaborated with FHI on several vehicles and even took on some Subaru model names in several countries where it was sold (the Chevy Forester, for example, was sold in India. GM then liquidated their holdings in FHI in 2005 and Toyota acquired about 40% of those holdings and thus became a partner with FHI and Subaru. One of the North Charlotte new Toyota projects they worked on together was building the Camry in Subaru’s Indiana plant in 2007.
In 2008, Toyota increased their share holdings in FHI and the Subaru BRZ/Scion FR-S was introduced and sold in 2012. After Toyota decided to shelve the North Charlotte Scion brand, they changed the name of the FR-S to the new Toyota 86 and continued to use Subaru’s boxer engine under the hood. Since then, Toyota has increased their holdings with Subaru and FHI and there are several joint projects currently in production. Here’s the seguey!
Current New Toyota and Subaru Projects to Watch Out For
Going forward, it looks like Toyota and Subaru are pretty well in partnership together. Even just this year we’ve gotten some juicy new projects between the two companies and we can’t wait until they come to fruition. One being the coming of a new Toyota 86/Subaru BRZ. The two North Charlotte new Toyota vehicles will remain largely similar regarding their engineering and aesthetics. But, Toyota’s 86 will feature a different front bumper design and a tad bit more horsepower.
Toyota also unveiled a whole slew of electric car news recently and Subaru was labeled as a collaborator on this project. In fact, it looks like the upcoming North Charlotte new Toyota bZ4X EV will also have a Subaru version, the Solterra. Whatever the future holds for Toyota and Subaru and their partnership, we at Toyota of North Charlotte can’t wait to see what new Toyota models come of it!