BMW and Toyota recently inked a deal to partner on fuel cell, sports car, and lightweight Technology [more on deal here], which should see synergies in engineering and development.

In a report about the Toyota Supra successor, Motor Trend suggests that the agreement will form the backbone to the development of both the new Supra and the next Z4. They speculate that both sports cars will ride on a revised and beefed up version of the Toyota 86 (AKA GT86, FR-S, BRZ) platform.

Should this rumor prove true, and with the Toyota 86 receiving much critical acclaim for its handling and being a true driver’s car, this will hopefully result in a much more dynamic handling successor Z4 than the current E89 Z4.

As for the next Z4’s … CONTINUED

BMW Group and Toyota Motor Corporation (TMC) are pursuing their successful strategic long-term cooperation in the field of sustainable mobility today by signing binding agreements aimed at long-term collaboration between the two companies for the joint development of a fuel cell system, joint development of architecture and components for a sports vehicle, and joint research and development of lightweight technologies. These agreements follow a memorandum of understanding signed in June 2012.

Furthermore, BMW Group and TMC also today signed a binding agreement to commence collaborative research on lithium-air batteries, a post-lithium-battery solution. This agreement marks the second phase of collaborative research into next-generation lithium-ion battery cells that commenced in March 2012.

The main points of the agreements are:

1. Fuel cell system
- The companies are convinced that fuel … CONTINUED

Remember the announcement made in July by BMW and Toyota regarding their plans to work together on the joint development of architecture and components for a future sports car? Few details were given about the end products for each respective company other than that the jointly developed sports car will not be identical nor share exterior designs and that they will be sustainable sports cars with environmentally friendly technology.

We expected the cars to feature technologies in which BMW and Toyota are market leaders — carbon fiber and hybrid tech, respectively.

Toyota’s UK chief Jon Williams has now indicated to Autoblog at the 2012 Paris auto show that the sports car is likely to be a hybrid. “In terms of the next developments we have announced a partnership … CONTINUED