A new rumor has hit the mill, with Toyota and Mazda supposedly deepening their existing partnership to create a next-generation sports car.
Every car enthusiast out there, no matter their walk of life, knows one immutable truth: Miata is always the answer. Trouble is, the current ND-generation Mazda MX-5 Miata is getting a bit long in the tooth (even with recent updates to keep it fresh), and it’s in need of a replacement. We know Mazda has a new sports car coming, but exactly what it’s going to be has been a moving target for the past few years. That’s still the case, and this latest rumor suggests things could soon get quite interesting — Mazda’s next sports car may be co-developed with Toyota.
At the moment, that is not anywhere close to confirmed, let me be clear. However, Best Car out of Japan is once again bringing this supposed tie-up into the zeitgeist, after initially reporting the cooperation back in February. Even their most recent post doesn’t give too much additional information, other than saying “there have been rumors” (which the outlet itself propagated, mind you) that Toyota and Mazda are working together on a new sports car on the current MX-5’s ‘N’ platform. In this case, the resulting Miata would almost certainly be the NE, following up on the previous four generations stretching back to 1989.
There are two major takeaways from this revelation, if it turns out to be true. First, this means Toyota is ditching Subaru for its next-gen GR86, after it co-developed its small sports car with the BRZ for its first two generations since 2012. The second is that either Toyota’s upcoming replacement, Mazda’s new MX-5, or both could be seriously different animals from what we know right now.
It’s not farfetched…
Now, while Toyota has maintained a working relationship with Subaru over the past decade, it’s also fostered products with Mazda. So, changing tracks like this isn’t an unreasonable move to make. For example, Toyota and Mazda jointly own a manufacturing plant in Alabama, and Mazda incorporates Toyota’s hybrid technology into its CX-50 SUV. And despite relatively little profitability in sports coupes these days, both automakers have a vested interest in keeping such a car going as part of its brand identity (especially Mazda, with the MX-5 as its halo).
Could we then see the next MX-5 morph into a 2+2, rather than a two-seater roadster? Could the GR86 shrink into a two-seater (basically, a mini-Supra)? Could either or both cars use hybrid powertrains?
At this point, we know literally nothing with certainty about what the tie-up could bring, if it is indeed happening at all. It makes sense, as it did with Toyota and Subaru, to share the R&D costs on a low-volume sports car. Subaru, for its part, also could be primed to walk away from the BRZ as it represents an absolute speck on the company’s sales charts (the best-selling Crosstrek, for example, outsells the BRZ by sixty to one). A recent price hike to the point where Subaru’s BRZ is $5,000 more than the equivalent GR86 — the same car, remember — isn’t likely to help the BRZ’s case moving forward.
Mazda has some damn good engineers on its team, and with Toyota’s resources spearheading a new sports car…we could have a winning recipe on our hands. Of course, none of the three automakers involved here are going to outright confirm any of these rumors at this point. Keep your ears to the ground, though, as the next several months could get a lot more interesting in the sports car space.
And if you’re a particular fan of the current Toyota/Subaru-developed GR86 or BRZ, I certainly can’t blame you. They’re great little sports cars, and now might be the perfect time to pick one up before they get far more collectible:
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