Toyota Says New Supra Will Have "Acceptable" Pricing - What Does That Mean?

Acceptable = $$35K base Anything more isn't acceptable.

As for the BMW being $65K so the Supra would have to be priced accordingly is a false assumption.

The unibody of a Mercedes E is not 2-3X the cost of the unibody of a Chevy Impala raw materials are raw materials.

BMW charges for hype.

The head of Toyota, Aki Toyoda. is the great grandson of the leader of the Japanese industrial revolution and grandson of the founder of Toyota Motors. It is his personal and stated goal to make Toyota and Lexus have a performance image at the top of their model ranges. In the Japanese culture you never challenge the boss's wishes or orders, particularly if their's is a direct blood line to the founder of one of the world,s largest industrial enterprises. Right or wrong, Aki wanted a Supra and by God he got one. Even if it fails miserably his position is safe. Blood is thicker than pretax!

@MD- Agree. With its looks I think it will struggle to find buyers no matter how it is priced. It is a mongrel with a halo car name plate.

And that "halo" is only among import tuner boys and nothing about this is JDM and JDM is massively important to import tuner boys.

@MD I know. They have shot themselves in the foot. There is nothing to appeal to hard core JDM tuner buyers or Toyota traditionalists. This is an accounting exercise and it shows. They would have been better off taking the BMW block (if they had to for this low volume car) and doing the rest in Japan.

They should have learned from the utter disaster that the GT86 is that letting someone else do the work is a bad idea. A better idea would have been to restyle the Mustang, and drop in Toyota engines. At least then the car would be right sized and right priced.

It seems BMW finds Toyota for this project. Since the former knows they have to roll out new Z4, but needs to cut down cost for profitability, so might as well find a MFR that could justifies using I6 engine. Toyota is the apparent choice since Nissan and Honda went for V6, and Mazda's default is Rotary.

You may be right and if so, then I can see Toyota absorbing BMW which is staggering at the moment under the weight of one new lackluster car after another.

I'll say it'll be a merging or strategic alliance.

You gentlemen may be onto to something. Although for brand integrity sake I do think BMW will not be absorbed, but a strong tie-up could benefit both.
The Z4 is overpriced and Toyota needs to get this right out of the gate. I believe marketing and accounting are recalculating what the market will accept is the reason for the long release time.

The one thing that is true is that BMW chose better than Mercedes that for whatever stupid reason went with the crap of Renault-Nissan.

I could easily see Toyota buy FCA for Ram and Dodge. Ram pummels the Tundra and Toyota has no muscle cars and muscle cars sell. There is a tremendous synergy that could be possible with Lexus, BMW, Alfa Romeo, and Maserati.

Maserati goes above BMW, Alfa Romeo goes to near premium, Lexus overlaps 2/3 with BMW. Use 1 platform, differentiate the engines and styling, and economies of scale can happen.

Smart

German government and strong German labor unions, both on BMW board, will never allow a Japanese company and likely any foreign manufacturer to buy BMW. They would force a merger or sale with either Mercedes or VW. Has recently been reported in European press that BMW and Mercedes have entered an agreement to share platforms on future models.

#WRONG

Merkel's German is faltering big time. Germany is headed for Socialist heaven: a cataclysmic depression.

European production capacity far outstretches demand for European cars, thus an implosion IS COMING when the Chinese fire up and make no mistake they are getting ready to roar.

ANYTHING that protects German workers' jobs will be what the unions go for.

Acceptable means you don't have to sell your first born to afford the purchase.

I wonder how much I could get for Karac.