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Written by Ollie Marriage
Earlier this week, the Zupra zaw off the BMW Z4. Apologies. That didn"t surprise me. I suspect that BMW never realised it was in a deadly head-to-head with Toyota The Germans were just going through the motions of creating another roadster, while the Japanese were in a desperate need to prove themselves. Not only must their car be better than the Z4 (the humiliation if BMW built a roadster that out-handled Toyota"s comeback coupe), but it needed to be strong enough to assuage the firm"s inability to create this car itself. And that"s a much tougher, more open-ended, philosophical task. With the parts they"ve used Toyota has done a bang up job. The crux here are those few words: "with the parts they used". Because BMW isn"t in the business of auctioning off the crown jewels. Toyota got the same 3.0-litre straight six turbo you find in everything from the 1-Series to the X5. It got the eight-speed ZF gearbox. That"s in just about everything BMW sells, plus most Land Rovers, Jaguars, Audis and so on. Good, but hardly exclusive. What it didn"t get was the special stuff. Near the outset of the joint project, BMW"s representatives apparently confided to Toyota that they"d never done a sports car before. This had me stumped for a while. But then I realised no, of course not, because that"s not BMW"s job.
Date written: 13 Jun 2019
More of this article on the Top gear website
ID: 16007
Earlier this week, the Zupra zaw off the BMW Z4. Apologies. That didn"t surprise me. I suspect that BMW never realised it was in a deadly head-to-head with Toyota The Germans were just going through the motions of creating another roadster, while the Japanese were in a desperate need to prove themselves. Not only must their car be better than the Z4 (the humiliation if BMW built a roadster that out-handled Toyota"s comeback coupe), but it needed to be strong enough to assuage the firm"s inability to create this car itself. And that"s a much tougher, more open-ended, philosophical task. With the parts they"ve used Toyota has done a bang up job. The crux here are those few words: "with the parts they used". Because BMW isn"t in the business of auctioning off the crown jewels. Toyota got the same 3.0-litre straight six turbo you find in everything from the 1-Series to the X5. It got the eight-speed ZF gearbox. That"s in just about everything BMW sells, plus most Land Rovers, Jaguars, Audis and so on. Good, but hardly exclusive. What it didn"t get was the special stuff. Near the outset of the joint project, BMW"s representatives apparently confided to Toyota that they"d never done a sports car before. This had me stumped for a while. But then I realised no, of course not, because that"s not BMW"s job.
Date written: 13 Jun 2019
More of this article on the Top gear website
ID: 16007
