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Toyota GT86 engineer Tada recounts how sports car came to be

Because the Toyota GT86, Scion FR-S and Subaru BRZ coupes are now a reality, it's almost hard to imagine the struggle that had to happen within the large, conservative corporate structures at both automakers for the joint project to even get off of the ground.
Speaking to those struggles on Toyota UK's Toyota Blog, GT86 Chief Engineer Tetsuya Tada enlightens us with a recap of the sports car's earliest origins. For Tada, the first stages of the project must have seemed almost as dreamlike as the final product is to drive.
Said the Chief, "I had been working in the minivan department engineering new product, but a month after the meeting I was summoned. 'Forget about minivans,' they said, 'you are now working on the sports-car project.'"

Toyota buys Daihatsu for small-car development

Toyota is getting serious about small cars, but it's not going at it alone. Instead it's turning to its subsidiary Daihatsu, with which it will now share more resources and expertise. And in the process, it's acquiring the remaining stake in the smaller automaker. Daihatsu is a Japanese carmaker founded in its present form in 1951, but with roots that trace back as far as 1907. Toyota acquired a controlling interest of 51 percent in Daihatsu in 1988, bringing the company under its umbrella. But now it is raising its stake to 100 percent by a reciprocal share-swap agreement that will see Daihatsu's other shareholders take 0.27 shares in the larger company for each share in the smaller. As part of the new arrangement, the Daihatsu division will take the lead in developing new small cars, both for itself and for its parent company. Toyota in turn will also share key technologies with Daihatsu, and both will share each other's networks in emerging markets. The bottom line is that we can expect to see more small Toyotas and Scions developed and built by Daihatsu in the near future. The Daihatsu name may not be as familiar to Americans as some of Toyota's other brands. It briefly sold models like the Charade and Rocky in the United States under its own name in the late 1980s and early 90s. However US customers may be more familiar with those it built for the Scion brand, such as the Scion xB that was based on the Daihatsu Materia. While the realistic part of our brains force us to admit it's unlikely, the dreamer within us will hold out hope that the new arrangement could see a Scion version of the nimble little Daihatsu Kopen roadster make its way to our shores in the coming years. Toyota and Daihatsu to Strengthen Small Car Operations through Unified Global Strategy Toyota Motor Corporation (Toyota) and its subsidiary Daihatsu Motor Co., Ltd. (Daihatsu) have reached an agreement whereby Daihatsu will become a wholly-owned subsidiary of Toyota by way of a share exchange (expected to be completed in August 2016). The purpose of the agreement is to develop of ever-better cars by adopting a unified strategy for the small car segment, under which both companies will be free to focus on their core competencies. Ultimately, this will help Daihatsu and Toyota to attain their joint goal of achieving sustainable growth. Additionally, the aim of the share exchange is to enhance the value of both brands.

Car thief caught in McDonald's drive-thru after placing order with owner

If you're going to drive a stolen car in a town of roughly 77,000 people - about the same size as Scranton, Pennsylvania or Ogden, Utah - you want to be very careful about where you drive that stolen car to eat. That's the lesson Katherine York of Kennewick, Washington learned when she was arrested for being in possession of a stolen Toyota 4Runner that also happened to have a bunch of stolen clothes from JC Penney and Sears in it.
Virginia Maiden woke up Tuesday, May 14 to find her 1995 4Runner - that she thought she forgot to lock - swiped from her apartment building. At 3 PM that afternoon, while working her shift at the drive-thru at McDonald's that day, she saw her truck in line. York hadn't even gone far - the McDonald's is not even five miles from Maiden's apartment. Maiden called the police, they showed up just as York was leaving, and York made another vehicle switch, this time into a black-and-white for a trip to the Benton County jail. They don't have McDonald's there, but she won't have so far to go to eat.