Cost-cutting and consolidation in the motor industry is forcing players like Toyota and Subaru, alliance partners, into sharing parts not necessarily best suited for their intended purposes. In spite of this, development of Toyota’s Subaru-based sports car, the FR, is gaining much-desired momentum. Word is, bosses at Japan’s numero uno have decided on the final shape of the car and we are lucky enough to have Best Car magazine lead the way, so to speak, in offering renderings of this front-engined rear-wheel-driven sports coupe. Toyota owns a minor stake in Subaru’s parent company Fuji Heavy Industries.

FR is described as possessing a “wonderful style” as far as looks are concerned. It’s a car based on a shortened Subaru Legacy platform whose suspension system has been identified by Toyota engineers as being “weak and terrible”, again, meaning good for a family car but not entirely suitable for a 200m sprinter. Nevertheless these die-hards have vowed to work on it until it handles like a real sports car. Not the best solution but when budgets are tight you have to make do with what you have.

Solid and proven, the 2.0-litre four-pot boxer with power of 190 PS (187hp), aimed for a 200 PS (197hp) production stage, is to be fitted. Accompanied at the hip by a 6-speed gearbox, it should carry itself well enough in the 1200kg (2645 lbs) body. Fuel consumption is always a concern and Toyota hopes not to have to reduce power by too much for the sake of frugality, but that possibility is fast turning into a probability even at current oil prices.

The rumor mill has been spitting out bits and pieces about the upcoming sports coupe currently being co-developed between Toyota and Subaru, but details about the car’s U.S. availability have been relatively scattered. Early reports suggested both cars would be available for U.S. consumption, while others speculated that only the Subaru version would be available in the States. But according to a new report, both guesses are wrong.

While the Subaru version of the coupe is still likely on for the U.S., Toyota will also be marketing the car here in the United States. However, the new model won’t be wearing a Toyota badge but will rather be given to the automaker’s Scion youth division, according to Carscoop.

For those of you thinking the new model will eat into Scion tC sales, you’re onto something. Instead of offering two models that are relatively the same – save for which wheels provide the motivation – Scion will badge the new model as the next-generation tC.

The next tC should hit the market in late 2010 or early 2011 and will be Scion’s first rear-wheel drive model. Subaru’s version of the sport coupe will offer an optional all-wheel drive system and a turbocharged engine good for about 300 horsepower, but look for the tC to do with just the base car’s 2.0L Boxer-four – producing about 200 horsepower – in order to keep in line with Scion’s value pricing.