Autoblog

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Within days of announcing Toyota's formation of a "Committee to create interesting cars," this summer's Best Car Plus magazine reveals that the long-rumoured new AE86 type car has indeed been spawned by the group and should be in showrooms in the winter of 2008.

The new article goes into some detail of the new car's spec. Under 4m long and 1.7m wide, it's pretty low at 1.35m tall, and engineers have been directed to keep weight below 1,000kgs. Power will come from a 1.5L 2NZ-FE good for 120 horsepower. What has been unknown until this time is where Toyota would source a cheap RWD drivetrain, but Best Car has learned that it will come from new partner Fuji Heavy Industries - better known to you and me as Subaru.

And the best news of all? The committee's final directive is to keep the new car's sticker price below 1.5million Yen. That's about $12,300 USD in today's money.

[Source: Best Car]

Gallery: Toyota's return of the AE86 - Courtesy of Best Car

In the Wild West, the order would have been "Cut them off at the pass!" For carmakers today battling with wildly fluctuating forecasts for mpg, CO2, and CAFE standards, the mission is to cut them off at the Capital. Taking matters upon themselves, some manufacturers are considering a proposal that would require 36 mpg for cars and 30 mpg for light trucks.

That proposal is being offered in an attempt to derail the fuel economy measure being taken up by the Senate in a couple of weeks. That's the one that calls for a CAFE standard of 35 mpg fleetwide by 2020 and a 4% increase every year for ten years, to which the automakers have unanimously replied, 'never gonna happen.' Environmentalists are trying to make that bill even stronger, seeing that is has a provision allowing the government to reduce the standard if it is found to be too technologically or financially difficult for automakers to achieve. Senator Carl Levin, the Michigan Democrat who's a friend of the industry, is proposing an alternative that mandates 36 mpg for cars by 2022, and a 30 mpg for trucks by 2025. Let's see -- that would give a 33 mpg average for cars and trucks in a maker's fleet by 2025, which is 2 mpg and 5 years shy of the CAFE standard requested in the bill the carmakers don't like. Is it us, or is this really just about timing?

[Source: Automotive News - sub. req'd]