Toyota in Talks With Fuji Heavy on Sports Car Output

By Naoko Fujimura

Dec. 20 (Bloomberg) -- Toyota Motor Corp., Japan’s largest automaker, is in talks with Fuji Heavy Industries Ltd. on when to start building a sports car after the Nikkei reported the two carmakers may delay the project.

“We’re discussing with Fuji Heavy the timing for the start of production and other details,” Hideaki Homma, a Toyota spokesman, said today by phone. He declined to elaborate on the negotiation. Toyota nearly doubled its stake in Fuji Heavy to 16.5 percent in April.

Toyota decided to postpone until 2012 or later its plan to have Fuji Heavy build the sports car as the domestic auto market keeps shrinking, the Nikkei reported, without saying where it got the information. Production was to start at the end of 2011, the newspaper said.

The Toyota City, Japan-based automaker is reviewing all new projects after slashing its profit forecast 56 percent last month because of falling sales in North America and Europe and a stronger yen. Toyota and Isuzu Motors Ltd. agreed to temporarily freeze their diesel engine project, Isuzu said Dec. 16. Tokyo- based Isuzu is 5.9 percent owned by Toyota.

Toyota’s subsidiary on the southwestern Japanese island of Kyushu will end contracts with about 1,100 temporary workers from April next year, as sales slump in North America and other regions, the Asahi newspaper said.

Toyota fell 2 percent to 2,900 yen on the Tokyo Stock Exchange yesterday. Fuji Heavy, the maker of Subaru-brand cars, fell 1.3 percent to 229 yen.

To contact the reporter on this story: Naoko Fujimura in Tokyo at nfujimura@bloomberg.net.