Quote:
Originally Posted by NytWolf
Yep. Toyota got lazy and would rather have other people build sports cars for them. They would rather stick to their bland car making.  |
It was way too expensive to build the FT-1 concept. The complex body panels were a nightmare to mold and would have been nearly impossible to produce in quantity with high enough quality standards. The car would have cost well north of $100k if they had made a new chassis/drivetrain in-house along with the complex body work. My Dad worked for Toyota for 20 years and had a great conversation with one of the engineers on the FT-1 concept when it made an appearance at a regional Toyota corporate event. The concept didn’t even have a real drivetrain or functional electronics. It was a pretty shell with a small electric motor so it could be moved around.
Its just too expensive to make new platforms these days unless it can be shared across products/brands. Get used to it, it’s going to be happening more and more.