This brief item was in the Driven magazine section of yesterday's New Zealand Herald newspaper ...
From whoa to much faster go, go, go ----------------------------------- Now that the Toyota 86 and Subaru BRZ sports coupes are realities, some motoring analysts have become fascinated by the behind-scenes struggle within the large, conservative corporate structures to get the joint project off of the ground.
How, for example, did Toyota 86 Chief Engineer Tetsuya Tada become involved in the early days? Did he have to step over dead bodies, or engage in some heavy-duty water cooler politics?
Apparently not. Writing on Toyota UK's blog, he says, "I had been working in the minivan department engineering new product, when I was called to a meeting. 'Forget about minivans,' they said, 'you are now working on a sports-car project.'"
Good Oil [the NZ Heald column] suspects he didn't beg to stay on with the vans.
Makes you wonder what kind of "minivan" he was working on as "new product" when management suddenly thought, "Hey, that will make a good sports car". ;-)