Report: CAR Magazine reportedly receives development on Toyota/BMW collab, codenamed Silk Road 2
Toyota and BMW have been known to be working together to produce some new sports cars. Postulation and rumors in the past have suggested this could result in an all-new Supra successor. While this is true and still on the table as a possibility, CAR Magazine recently was able to reveal new details of Toyota’s and BMW’s first sports car collaboration: it will be a mid-engined sports car that will rival the Porsche 911. According to this latest report, the Supra is this new mid-engined model…Sounds like blasphemy, doesn’t it?
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According to the report, it is in fact blasphemy as this new model is said to “break traditions” of all sorts. Supposedly codenamed Silk Road 2 or SR2, it is said to ultimately take shape as a proposed BMW Z7 and Lexus ZC/ZR and will cost around 90,000 euros or 73,000 GPB, making its sights set directly on Porsche 911 territory. This is not to suggest that BMW and Toyota are abandoning their original plans to produce and co-develop a BMW Z4/Toyota GT 86 replacement as that is very much expected to be revealed sometime in 2017. But this model was intended to be the Supra replacement.
The SR2 on the other hand will be the benchmark while succeeding and lesser models are expected such as the latter Z4 and GT 86 replacement. Additionally, the new benchmark may turn out to be a hybrid, as indicated by CAR, who also learned that it will be the first plug-in hybrid sports car with a six-cylinder engine. After speaking with an apparent company insider, that engine will most likely be the ubiquitous 3.0L TwinPower Turbo inline-six that we’ve come to know and love.
We’re not quite sure what this really means for the highly-anticipated and rumored Supra revival. For all we know, it may still be on the table. Either way, expect this new halo car to be somewhere in the 400bhp-500bhp bracket and to think of it as the Lexus LF-A’s little brother.
Source: CAR
