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Originally Posted by Red Bread
Wait, Scion was successful?
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Yes it was. The main success was changing the JDM/small-import customization game from a third-party-only league to a manufacturer-preferred one. That shift was seismic in automotive cultural history. You don't think Toyota learned a few tricks from that? The rest of the industry sure as heck did ...
Quote:
Originally Posted by Red Bread
But along that line, was any Toyota sports car, really? I know the Mk4 has a brief moment ... nothing else seems like it was ever a standout, Celica, MR2 and others were all a bit of also runs compared to other choices.
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The MR2 was
the affordable mid-engine sports car of its time. Remember that the Supra grew out of the Celica, which was, off and on, the 2+2 to get from Japan (with healthy competition from the ZX/Prelude/RX-7/Eclipse) -- and dare I say that the last-generation Celica GT-S was a hell of a car for its price point. And don't forget the 2000GT, which predated the 240z by three years.
None competed with high-strung American sports cars because it wasn't the point to. The 'vette comparison is not valid. A more apt comparison would be with the Pontiac Fiero, or the Mercury Capri, or the Ford Probe. Different markets, different customers.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Red Bread
Mazda won LeMans and Honda cleaned up in F1 for ages, but Toyota and both racing and sports cars don't really strike me as a core strength. Reliable, boring and predictable, yes.
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I've posted before about Toyota's philosophy with racing. It's different than most other manufacturers in that it gets involved to improve commercial product, and leaves when it deems the involvement not worth the potential improvements to commercial product. Toyota's been this way since its founding. In virtually every circuit Toyota has decided to participate in, it has won consistently in. The same can't be said of many other manufacturers, including ones much more equated with racing. Don't confuse a difference in philosophy with a lack of success.