Report: Toyota cancels plans for convertible 86

Toyota has shot down plans for a convertible 86 and reiterated that there will not be a turbocharged version of the critically acclaimed coupe.

US publication Wards Auto spoke with Doug Murtha, senior vice president of Toyota's sporty Scion spinoff at the Los Angeles motor show last week, where he reportedly said that there will not be a drop-top version of Toyota's sports car.

"So on the convertible we went down swinging," he said.

"I think we were pretty aggressive... but we looked at what we would have conceivably lost on the product and said 'we're not even going to push it further'.

"Nobody was more disappointed than we were."

The convertible 86 project was well advanced within Toyota. The manufacturer produced two concept cars that appeared production-ready, featuring a lightweight cloth roof in favour of a complicated metal contraption.

Tetsuya Tada, chief of Toyota's 86 project, told Drive in 2013 that engineers were tuning the finer points of handling for the convertible 86.

"We've said that we designed this car from the ground up to have this open top in the first place, so the weight increase won't be as much as you would probably expect," he said.

"We're just looking in to what sort of taste, what's the preference that people would have for this car."

But plans to produce a rival to the Mazda MX-5 have stalled.

Tada-san visited Australia in November to attend the brand's annual Festival of 86, where he said that upgrades to the machine will be incremental, and that a turbocharged version will not go on sale.

Murtha echoed that view in California saying there will not be a turbocharged version of the 86.

"That's not something that's coming," he said.