You may know that the Toyota GR86 sports car (reviewed here) is actually a Subaru sports car; and that the Toyota Supra sports car is actually a BMW sports car. This is not a slam of any of these cars or their respective brands. It is mentioned to raise a question that’s worth answering – as to why these brands re-sell other brands’ vehicles.
And it’s not just the these brands. Or even these vehicles. Did you know that the ten speed automatic transmission used in many GM and Ford vehicles is the same transmission?
Back to the why.
Let’s start with a little history. Back in the ’60s and ’70s it was common for a brand (singular) to re-sell essentially the same vehicle through several of its divisions. An example of this is the way GM sold two different versions of one sporty coupe through its Chevy and Pontiac divisions. There was the Chevy Camaro and the Pontiac Firebird. Both based on the same underlying car, with exterior sheetmetal differences and interior styling differences to make a “Pontiac” of one and a “Chevy” of the other.
For awhile – until 1982 – there were also mechanical differences; the 1967-1981 Firebirds had or at least offered Pontiac-built engines that were not the same as the Chevy-built engines one got in a Camaro. But regulatory compliance costs put an end to that after the 1981 model year. From 1982 until the cancellation of the Firebird back in 2002, the “Pontiac” was a Chevy in every way except for superficial cosmetics and badging. Because it had become too expensive for GM to pay the compliance costs associated with different-brand engines. It cost much less to pay compliance costs once – for a Chevy V8 – than to pay them twice, for a Chevy V8 and a Pontiac V8.
And that’s why no more Pontiac V8s. And no Firebirds, either – because why bother with a “Pontiac” that is just a restyled Chevy with a different badge?
Which brings us back to the GR86/Subaru BRZ and the Toyota Supra/BMW Z4. We have arrived at the point on this road that a vehicle manufacturer like Toyota can no longer afford – or at least, cannot justify spending – what it costs to get a new vehicle (and a new engine) of its own design through the compliance rigmarole and so instead just resells an already compliant vehicle made by another manufacturer.
Back in the day, GM saved on in-house development costs by having Chevy and Pontiac use the same basic vehicle platform as the basis of their respective brand’s sporty cars, the Camaro and Firebird. But it was still feasible, on a cost-benefit basis, to allow the Pontiac version to have its own Pontiac-sourced drivetrains and the Chevy version its own Chevy-sourced powertrains. This was doable until the late 1970s, by which time the compliance regime’s noose was already tightening such that GM could no longer afford the additional compliance costs of a Pontiac V8. So – beginning with the 1982 models – the Camaro and Firebird got the same V8 (as well as the same standard four and optional V6).
The compliance regime’s noose is now much tighter, of course. So tight that not even Toyota – one of the biggest car companies in existence – can afford to spend what it takes to develop a low-volume sports car of its own and make it compliant. And that is why Toyota re-sells the Subaru BRZ as the Toyota GR86 – and the BMW Z4 as the Toyota Supra.
This arrangement works for Subaru and BMW, too – in that their compliance costs are offset somewhat by the re-selling of their cars under another brand label. But the fact remains that compliance costs have become so great that even a huge car company such as Toyota can no longer justify the compliance costs of developing its own, actually Toyota sports car.
Similarly, it made more financial sense for GM and Ford to split the costs of designing and proving the ten speed automatic they both currently use in several of their respective brand’s vehicles. How long before Ford and GM begin sharing engines, too? This seems as logical as it is probably inevitable. It is why there is no longer a Pontiac – or a Mercury. Or a Plymouth. Soon – probably – there won’t be a Chrysler, either.
And maybe not a Dodge.
The brands that are already gone were done in by compliance costs that made it too expensive for their parent brand to keep them around – as well as pointless, once those brands became little more than re-sellers of the same cars.
Logically – inevitably – the ever-more-tightly-cinching noose will strangle more brands into nonexistence until, one day, there are only one or two brands left and so not much in the way of alternatives to them.
The process of “electrification” will – it already is – accelerating things as it doesn’t make much sense to sell the same device under so many different brand labels. Especially luxury-brand devices. What is “luxurious” about a device that has the same basic thing under its skin as the other devices? A battery pack and a motor and pretty much the same amenities and touchscreen interfaces?
Other than the big plastic three-pointed star, that is.
If that’s all there is to a “Mercedes,” it makes as much as sense as a “Pontiac” that’s just a slightly restyled Chevy sold under another brand label.
Or a “Toyota” that’s a Subaru, for that matter.
. . .
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After the “Franchise Wars”, it was decided that ALL resteraunts would be Pizza Hut.
I can see your point on powertrain and battery packs for electric vehicles, but I seriously doubt we will see a Chevy/Ford sharing an engine.
Rear ends and transmissions have a long standing history of being farmed out to multiple manufacturers.
As far as regulatory costs go, any make/model must do FMVSS testing and EPA testing on a per make/model/powertrain basis. They all have different weights and shapes and pedestrian impacts.
I doubt seriously this is a hinderance to the industry. Testing should not be prohibitivly expensive in itself, other than to squeeze out tuning companies and self assemblers who don’t have 16 cars to crash to sell the 17th. That’s really there to keep us and kit builders off-road IMO.
As far as the 86/BRZ, it was jointly developed as I have read. I’ve never even worked on one but my understanding is the engine was basically done by Subaru with Toyota fueling and computer – just an edjucated guess from what I remember in no way familiar with it.
But yeah with the electrics they may as well all be called pizza hut.
By the way Eric, the FINAL episode of the Grand Tour airs tomorrow. Jeremy Clarkson, James May, and Richard Hammond have influenced auto journos and car people for like 30 years now.
I would be very interested in an article with your thoughts on the mark they’ve left on the world. It’s the end of an era if you’re a fan and I think a re-cap is newsworthy for any auto journo.
https://www.ericpetersautos.com/2024/09/10/2024-toyota-gr86/camaro-cs-firebird/
That 1979-81 Firebird Formula in the picture in the article looks just like my daily driver 79. Except the one in the picture has shiny paint…
The Japanese automakers do the bidding of Japan’s so-called Liberal Democratic Party, which has had one party rule over Nippon ever since the days of the “Gaijin Shogun”, General (of the Army) Douglas MacArthur.
Communism = one size fits all. No choices.
Means to an end.
Eventually no public cars, then no effective resistance = easy depopulation.
It is a deadly slow motion wreck we get to witness, yet can do nothing about.
This is how it ends. Not with a bang but with a whimper..
The whimper of the few of us who cared enough to be paying attention.
Pretty sick stuff these counterfeiting bankers are up to.
Comes down to most ride categories are essentially commoditized appliances, like toasters or flat-screen TVs. This has even been the subject of many a humorous commercial, i.e. how does the promoted “brand” stand out?
Given that our current GovCo is behaving quite like the former DDR Politburo, it wouldn’t surprise me if the control freaks in DC want the automakers to put out a latter-day Trabant. Of course. comcomittant with that would be the demands to justify “need”, and meeting “DEI” goals re: distribution and FINANCING, and maybe even giving some away to undocumented aliens! Needless to say, that “Trabant” would at least be a hybrid, if not an EV, and pricing might be based on income and “equity”.
The final insult will be to outlaw “vintage” vehicles as “unsafe”, “gross polluters”, or even “WHITE privilege”.
At this phase of the game, it’s all Kayfabe both in politics and every industry which is touched by it.
There is hardly an industry that isn’t somehow touched by Govt, either via regulation, or via Govt contracts.
Non-compliance and “No” are the only hope.
Toyota owns 20 percent of Subaru, 153 million shares. Subaru pays a dividend of 32 cents, Toyota is paid dividends in excess of 50 million dollars each year by Subaru.
Toyota can re-invest the dividends and buy more Subaru stock.
When you build cars, you want them to sell. Toyota has been doing a good job, their stock price was near the 50 dollar mark around 2005. TM is $175 and change today.
Toyota also owns five percent of Mazda. A billion plus shares of Mazda gives Toyota a total of 50 million of them. Toyota is making 10 million dollars on their Mazda holdings.
Toyota, Subaru, Mazda, the executives all must talk to each other.
They manufacture millions of vehicles all together, the vehicles have to sell if they all want to stay in business. They’re not twiddling their thumbs.
State Street owns 9.8 million shares of TM.
So far this summer season there was not one day at 100 degrees in temperature. Been good warm weather for a September, late summer. Been smokey haze for a few days, those hazy, lazy, crazy days of summer are almost over. All I know about that.
December weather will be cold, a solid prediction that will be correct.
The Japanese automakers do the bidding of Japan’s so-called Liberal Democratic Party, which has had one party rule over Nippon ever since the days of the “Gaijin Shogun”, General (of the Army) Douglas MacArthur.
Toyota does have their own sports car* though, the GR Corolla (: They took their overseas GR Yaris parts and put it in a souped up Corolla, but at least it doesn’t share parts with other manufacturers.
Sure, its a 300hp turbo 3 thats currently manual only, but at least they got a few different flavors of cars and trucks to choose from besides vanilla
Very true, Carmelo –
The Corolla GR is possible because it’s a version of an existing (FWD) model. The GR86 (and the Supra) are of course unrelated to any other Toyota model and – for Toyota to make these rear-drive sports cars on its own, Toyota would have to design them from the wheels up. Enter the compliance costs. Which is why the GR86 is a Subaru and the Supra a Z4.
Side note, any plans on reviewing the GR Corolla? Just curious
same issues in our industry. regulators said ‘it must be x certified’ so the certification/testing industry jumped in and said ‘it must be UL and/or FM rated’.
so now if our Manufacture needs to change an existing design in any way, it must go back for certification which is reported to be $1M +/-. And guess what: YOU pay for this insanity, as our products are for VIP infrastructure.
Even 40+ years ago, it was painfully obvious that “Pontiac” stood for “People Often Notice That It’s A Chevy.” But there was just enough differentiation to keep too many people from noticing enough. Today, that’s sadly not the case.
One unique thing about Pontiac was that little Indian that popped up and illuminated the speedometer when you had the high beams on. Imagine the hue and cry that would come oozing out of VP Joyjoy Hauktua if that were still around today.
Went and looked at a 65 T-bird. down near BCC recently. That stirred up some fond memories, talk about styling. Plan on selling our ‘modern’ T-bird, then at some point, when the economy tanks, and prices come down, buying a nice 65
Dont forget that 403 Oldsmobile engine under the screaming chicken Pontiac hood on Chevrolets answer to the Ford Mustang.
More than forty years ago, it was also “Poor Old NEGRO thinks it’s a Cadillac. Then Caddy gussied-up a J-car, branded by Pontiac as the J2000, and it wasn’t funny anymore.
Really? I grew up with it being “Poor Old N***a Thinks Its A Cadillac”
Learn new things daily
In the 1990s I built my own PCs using “white box” components. In quite a few ways it was superior to the underpowered products from Compaq and IBM. But they were still selling their badge as a premium. I suppose one could argue the IBM power supply was built better than my Taiwanese knock-off, or that the capacitors on the Compaq motherboard would last for 50 years while the Asus might only last 20.
Not to mention the AMD K6 processor that blew the doors off Intel’s 486 for half the price.
But to the average person looking at my ghetto builds, there was no difference once you got past the ugly case. In fact, my systems were easier to maintain and performed better on many metrics for far less money.
The early 00’s brought on digital cell phones by Nokia. Handsets became a commodity item, no real differences other than color and if it had snake. Nokia wanted to introduce new features and create premium handsets. They took two different tacks -adding features galore such as cameras (then upgraded cameras) and different origami-style folders/sliders, and the Vertu line. The Vertu was a premium phone case wrapping a 3310 circuit board. Bedazzled phone basically. I guess it might have appealed to the new money oligarchs and their trophy wives, but overall the Vertu line was a failure.
Point is, cars are devolving to the “white box” level. The 2.0L 4 cylinder with turbo is the default plant. The 4 door sedan/small SUV is the default shape. Crew cab pickups with undersized beds. You can have any color you want, as long as it’s black (or white, or grey, or red). Sounds great from a manufacturing perspective. Pretty bad for marketing though, when every car is the same under the hood they have to really work to earn their keep. And with the drive to software driven interiors once one company has a hit with their touchscreen apps, they all will just make their own variant.
But it might also open the door to custom coach builders too. Right now anyone can buy a crate engine and as long as it can be jammed under the hood, someone will be able to make it work. There’s a YouTuber called Matt who fit a Chevy LS into the front of a Corvair Lakewood wagon so that he could recover OHVs in southern Utah. There’s no reason why someone couldn’t grab a 2.0L engine and do the same thing. Right now there’s no market, but if they can undercut Ford and GM while providing a custom product, why not?
I think tech may rescue us “non compilers” – 3D modeling to get the interface points correct then use the CAD model to machine the adapter motor mounts, transmission interface etc.
It’s blasphemy but the son in law has studied up on a Chevy V8 LS (?) with GM auto trans conversion for his Defender 110. Kits available. So, there are already private folks doing this type of work to keep old rigs on the road.
Years ago my friend bought a ‘64 IH Scout where someone had removed the 4 banger and with adapters installed a MOPAR slant 6. It was a trail climbing monster, would just idle up grades in low low 4 wheel drive.
There’s no tangible difference between the GMC Sierra and Chevy Silverado. Hasn’t been for decades. GMC has better trim levels but beyond that it’s all window dressing. Yet I’m compelled to go to GMC’s website and build trucks. I never do that with Chevy.
Why? I don’t know. Just old enough to remember when they were distinct and unique.
The apparat’s plan is homogenization leads to eradication. So far they’re winning. Maybe Orange Man Bad can find a phone booth to change in & then swoop down to save us.
He couldn’t even save himself from a lousy debate performance because he has no underlying principles. I’m still voting for him.
yeah ,,, lol,,, they made fun of him when he mentioned Haitians eating local wildlife and pets. Problem is…. it is a fact. Even the genius Armstrong mentioned it this morning. Americans just aren’t that bright anymore…. They give stupid a bad name. Any intelligence has been bred/indoctrinated out.
Please note, I am not pushing Trump. I am not voting in this fake and gay election. Just pointing out the utter stupidity disease most Americans these days have contracted,,, like ex Representative Adam Kinzinger (R, Illinois) saying NATO could take out Russia in three days. We are about to find out! Another effing Neo CON.
This subject does not belong here. Shame on you.
As long as OM gets triggered so easily, he’s done. He did well for about fifteen minutes until Hauktua started talking about how boring his rallies are and how many people leave early really took him off his game
Too true Norman, he’s like a crack addict in that he just can’t help himself. His proposals are whacky anyway because he thinks Chyna is going to pay for the tariffs rather than the end consumer, pucker up Walmart shoppers. I think I will cast a vote for Jill Stein in protest of the Uniparty.
He had so many chances to crush her. Instead of name dropping Tulsi, Vivick, RFK, Elon, Tucker, then challenging her to name one single quality person she listens to, he starts channeling that insufferable cvnt of a daughter of his and drones on about the ‘good people.’
Also he looked really stupid when they brought up Oblabla care. All he needed to say was “The 20 million illegal aliens you let in and gave free health care to, ruined it for the rest of us.” The fact checkers heads would have exploded, like in scanners for everyone to see.
Coworker/ ride share guy had a ‘90 GMC half ton, it was superior build quality to our ‘91 Chev Silverado. Any GMC rig I’ve been in the same “just a better build” vibe. No squeaks, no rattles, better trim and panel fitment.
‘GM and Ford split the costs of designing and proving the ten speed automatic.’ — eric
It’s interesting to compare a ten-speed ‘compliance transmission’ with Volkswagen’s diesel emissions debacle, in which a chip sensed whether the conditions of the EPA’s Highway Fuel Economy Economy Test Cycle (HWFET) are present or not. In this link, you can see the fluctuations in speed which occur during the 765-second dynamometer test procedure.
https://dieselnet.com/standards/cycles/hwfet.php
A ten-speed transmission is just a mechanical version of Volkswagen’s notorious chip. Each of those little fluctuations in the dynamometer speed graph can be sensed and catered for, with a specific gear ratio, to wring out a few extra tenths of a mile per gallon. This has a dollar value in terms of avoiding fines, or paying lower fines to the US fedgov.
In other words, the ten-speed compliance transmission is designed to the HWFET test — not to real-world conditions, which don’t require ten speeds. The victim … errr, customer … pays for the reduced reliability of this unnecessary complexity.
Bottom line: ten speeds belong on bicycles, not on frickin’ cars. What a crock! I PROTEST.
Re: the 10-speed automatic . . .
I was the second owner of a 1968 Olds Cutlass S, which came new from the factory with a Ford 3-speed manual transmission (and factory Hurst shifter).
I saw the car’s factory order form (remember carbon copies?). The number of powertrain options offered that year were stunning: a dozen different engines (and intake variations), an almost equal number of transmission choices, a half-dozen rear-end options.
Such was the “Before Time” (echoing Eric) . . . when consumers were king . . . and no “compliance costs”.
I have the ten speed tranny in my Silverado. Over 50,000 miles, no issues and still smooth as butter. And I average over 30 mpg.