And why does BMW need a new sports car platform? It already has the Z4. True, but the Z4 shares a lot of hardware with the 3 Series, which is fast getting too big to be sliced and diced into a credible two-seat roadster. Sharing with Toyota allows BMW to economically decouple the Z4 platform from the 3 Series, and keep it sports car size. There’s another potential benefit: The new platform could also underpin a new 2 Series coupe as the next-gen 1 Series goes front drive. It would keep the 2 Series rear drive – vital to BMW’s sporty credentials – but, more important, also liberate it from using modified 3 Series hardware, which is getting too big, too heavy and – crucially – too expensive.

As it turns out, recent reports surrounding the death of Mini's Paceman, Coupe and Roadster models appear to have been greatly exaggerated, but on the other hand, the rumors about BMW looking to work together with Toyota on the development of a common platform for roadster models do hold true.

The news comes via BMW sales chief Ian Robertson, who first dismissed the reports about Mini axing its range, stating, "I have no idea where that has come from".

In fact, Peter Schwarzenbauer, the board member responsible for the MINI brand, said the BMW Group's new modular platform for front-wheel drive car could actually lead to the development and production of an even wider range of models for the British automaker.

"There are discussions going on at the moment because the new architecture provides more possibilities," said Schwarzenbauer. "There are a lot of ideas and we are considering how we can have a larger spread."

In regards to roadster models, Robertson said that a business case for two-seater, open top cars for BMW and MINI is becoming "increasingly difficult to make in terms of sales volumes", though, he admitted that, the German automaker is looking into other options, such as sharing development costs with Toyota.

"There are only three markets in the world where you can sell roadsters in any great numbers, Germany, the UK and the United States," explained Robertson. "They don't want them in Asia or Africa or South America and this segment has been under pressure for the past five years."

"We're talking to Toyota - can we have a platform that sits nicely under a roadster? It's possible," he said, adding that BMW and Toyota have been working well together in other areas, such as sharing diesel engines, developing new units, and researching fuel cell vehicles and battery technology.

"It's a good marriage with both parties so strong and we're moving the programme forward," he said.

Robertson did not elaborate on whether the roadster model concerns the Z4, as some reports claim, or a different series in terms of size and cost.

Will have a front-engined layout

New details have emerged about the highly anticipated hybrid sportscar co-developed by BMW and Toyota.

It will adopt a front-engined, all-wheel drive layout with a supercapacitor hybrid system derived from Toyota's Le Mans LMP1 racer. The Japanese marque seems to be in charge of the all-new plug-in hybrid system which will feature supercapacitors to store kinetic energy for a short period of time in order to grant the vehicle with a performance boost.

The reason why both automakers opted for supercapacitors is related to their capacity to absorb and discharge kinetic energy quicker than lithium-ion batteries. In addition, these are also lighter and smaller and will be implemented in a body engineered by BMW.

Power will likely come from a BMW-developed 4-cylinder, 2.0-liter gasoline engine working together with electric motors produced by the Bavarian marque to the specs supplied by Toyota. A sequential manual gearbox is planned while the electronics system is going to be developed by Toyota and should offer torque-vectoring capabilities.

Expect to find an aluminum and high-strength steel floorpan combined with carbon fiber applications in the non-load-bearing areas. For the outer body BMW will likely utilize CFRP panels while both cars will have different exterior and interior designs.

Bayerische Motoren Werke AG (BMW) and Toyota Motor Corp. (7203) are moving closer to putting jointly developed sports cars on the road.

Cooperation on the underpinnings of the vehicles “has moved on to the concept phase and is running according to plan,” Munich-based BMW said in a statement to Bloomberg News. A technical feasibility study that began in January 2013 has been “successfully completed.”

The midsize model is the most visible project within a broader partnership the manufacturers have said will last until at least 2020. The two companies have been tight-lipped about details, including the targeted introduction date, after announcing the plan early last year. Toyota today confirmed that the project has moved beyond the feasibility stage, which was initially due to be completed by the end of 2013.

Toyota, the world’s largest automaker, needs sports cars “to put that energy back into the brand,” Europe Executive Vice President Karl Schlicht said last month at the Paris Motor Show when asked about the cooperation with BMW, which this year started selling the racy $135,700 i8 plug-in hybrid.

In January, Toyota showed the FT-1 coupe concept at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit. The company said the rear-wheel-drive sports car’s design drew from past models including the Supra, 2000GT and Celica.


In addition to the sports car, Toyota and the world’s biggest maker of luxury vehicles are cooperating on research into fuel cells, lightweight technology and lithium-air batteries. The two companies agreed to work together on lithium-ion batteries in 2012. Both companies declined to comment further on the new sports cars.

Automakers tend to look for partners to limit costs of developing new technology and small-scale vehicles. Other tie-ups include Daimler AG’s cooperation with the Renault SA-Nissan Motor Co. alliance, which has been gradually expanding beyond projects such as new versions of Daimler’s urban Smart cars and Renault’s Twingo subcompact.

Toyota and BMW’s joint sports car project is set to spawn two different-sized four-wheel-drive hybrids that won’t be direct rivals for each other

BMW and Toyota are planning to spin two different sizes of vehicle off their ongoing joint sports car project, allowing engineers from the two companies to deliver the next generation of Z4 and the return of the Supra name respectively.

The original deal to work together on a mid-size sports car was announced in 2012. Few details have been released since then, but BMW did confirm late last year that the project had entered the “concept phase” and that a technical feasibility study had been “successfully completed”.

Senior sources have now confirmed further details, including where the car Toyota produces will sit in the firm’s product line-up.

Speaking at the Geneva show, Toyota Europe vice-president and product planning chief Karl Schlicht said: “The intention with the new car is for it to sit above the GT 6. It doesn’t replace that model; the GT 86 goes on with its own mission.”

That positioning tallies with the return of one of Toyota’s classic sports car names. While the Celica badge has traditionally been used for models of the GT86’s size, the Supra name would give the firm a mainstream sports car flagship. It also allows the new car to be considerably more expensive than the GT86, reflecting what is likely to be a complex powertrain and high-tech construction.

As Autocar revealed last year, the two models are likely to feature a hybrid four-wheel drive set-up incorporating a BMW petrol engine and electric motors whose energy is stored in supercapacitors.

BMW is understood to be bringing its expertise in construction to the project, with the new sports car likely to follow the existing i3 and i8, and the forthcoming 7 Series, by making use of carbonfibre in its architecture.

Toyota’s most recent sports car concept, the FT-1, could be seen as a preview for the Japanese brand’s offering. Its 4.6m overall length is broadly the same as that of the last Supra, which was withdrawn from sale in 2002.

A model of this size would also be significantly larger than the existing Z4, but Ian Robertson, BMW’s board member with responsibility for sales and marketing, has stated that the two manufacturers have come up with a proposal that can satisfy different areas of the sports car market.

“The one thing we’re clear on now is that a platform for both companies can work,” he said. “The cars in themselves don’t actually need to be positioned the same. The platform can spawn two positionings.

“The concept works, the platform can deliver and now we have two proud sets of engineers - one group German, one group Japanese - who are each fighting and arguing for the car they want.”

When asked if the platform was scalable, to allow for the sort of difference in wheelbase that there could be between a Supra and a Z4, Robertson said: “Gone are the days when one platform was one platform. Most of our platforms are scalable these days.”

Robertson also said that no decision on production had been taken, but he suggested that a single factory would be used for both cars. “One part of the next phase will be deciding who builds the car - which company and in which country. We need to find out where the markets are and whether the biggest markets are the same for both companies.” It’s thought that a plant in the United States or Europe is more likely to be used than a facility in Japan.

Toyota’s luxury brand, Lexus, does not currently have access to the joint sports car program, but senior company officials have refused to rule out the idea in the longer term. “Toyota is next door,” said Lexus’s European boss, Alain Uyttenhoven. “We are one company and our head is Akio Toyoda, and we could do it. Right now, we are not going to have a common platform between BMW and Lexus. Purely speaking, though, we have access to everything which is Toyota.”