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TWO THOUSAND FIVE

2005. The Celica and MRS /MR2 bow out. The Supra moved on 5 years ago with the Levin and Trueno. The AllTrac and GT4 Celica disappeared 6 years ago. Even in Japan, there are no more sporty Toyotas. All followed the Toyota 2000GT- gone to Toyota’s great museum in the sky, a couple left parked in our garage. Cherished orphaned nameplates now. Abandoned, decommissioned, discontinued, and seemingly given an unappreciated exit.

The 4AGE and 3SGE had been retired. The 3SGTE is hiding in some non-sporting Toyota. The 2JZGTE is soon to follow all the other great legendary Toyota Twin Cams of the performance variety: 3M, 9R, 2TG, 3TGTE, 18RG, and 7MGTE. This has got to be the lowest point in Toyota product and engine line-up for the Toyota enthusiast. The 2ZZGE is hiding under some hoods.

And you, we, all of us supposed Toyota enthusiasts and racers are to blame. The Toyota performance cars did not sell in the #s Toyota needed. Simply put, Toyota does not need our business or opinion. So do not bother calling Toyota and registering your grief or indignation, there were not enough of us to support and buy the performance products.

Toyota Marketing trounced Toyota Engineering and Product Planning. They will show you charts, projections, studies, trends, and 1000’s of reasons to shut you up. Do not despair there are still some enthusiasts in Product Planning, but It is a pure money issue. We could only wish that Toyota Marketing appreciated the legacy of the sporty Toyotas as much as the now disenfranchised Toyota enthusiasts still do.

The Toyota future looks pure Prius, SUV, and Scion. Hopefully you are brushed up with RC car technology, have 7 friends to drive around, and not adverse to flash marketing and fashion fads. Or inane limited editions or numbered series. Decals, emblems, and paint jobs do not make a car special- performance engines do. If you look hard enough, 2ZZGE engines still lurk under some hoods in generic sedan bodies. A candle in the darkness in the middle of a storm.

Eventually Toyota will be # 1 in the world. The Camry Hybrid and Lexus line will continue to high profile as the quintessential Toyota products. Toyota trucks will rule Texas. Toyota will continue posting yearly RECORD SALES. Toyota tried to emulate Chrysler and became even better than it. Toyota’s Global 10 became Global 15- the corporate goal to capture the market share percentage. Not the Toyota we loved.

Toyota will continue racing IRL, NASCAR, and F1. Maybe even dominate, as it has done before to promote the then current Twin Cams. The better to impress people who never experienced the joy of a TE27 with a 2TG, RA20 with an 18RG, AE86 with a 4AGE, ST205 and SW20 with a 3SGTE, JZA80 with the 2JZGTE. But who is the target market for all this motor sport greatness? Win on Sunday, mass transit on Monday? At least the Toyota Factory teams have fun. Paid for by the boring cars.

For Toyota enthusiasts, life is not fair. Probably, we did not make enough money to afford the …… And market dominance screws up corporate values. Money talks and enthusiasts walk. Toyota has showed their real spirit, cannot call it soul: it has become an unexciting but efficient automobile manufacturer, dependably boring, hugely profitable. Performance glorified in marketing, not under the hood. In the current season of factory 500HP luxury cars and SUVs, the high revving multi-valved supercharged turbocharged Toyota Twin Cam engines did not matter. The Nameplates that made Toyota famous and legendary (and the envy of other manufacturers) in the different international / local racing circuits and in the import show / street scene have run out of Toyota Corporate supporters.

Even TRD in Japan and the U.S., with all their good intentions will be hard pressed to change the new Toyota image, so do not blame them too- their jobs maybe next.

1985 to 2005. Twenty years of radical change in Toyota. For the Toyota enthusiasts, twenty years from the top to the buttom. The cars we love have become clichés. The Supras, Celicas, MR2s, Levins and Truenos ….. will all become “old School”. A tunnel with no light at the end…..

2025. Who knows? Or do we even care?

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