Obviously, Toyota has a lot to think about these days other than building a sexy little sports car. Claims of unintended acceleration, a massive government investigation and a bevy of small but disastrous recalls have conspired to tarnish the company's once-golden reputation for quality and reliability. So it isn't shocking that Toyota would cool its jets on producing the performance-oriented vehicle in favor of shoring up its current model lineup.

But Toyota is one of the world’s largest corporations, and as such, it doesn’t have the same sort of trouble multitasking as your average American male. A team of researchers can be busy unearthing the causes behind unintended acceleration while engineers slave away on producing the company’s first real sports car in decades without ever having to worry about taxing the company’s resources.

It's true that Toyota has a mess on its hands when it comes to sorting out its quality issues, but stalling the FT-86, a project that could build considerable interest in the company, isn't going to help. In this case, the rumors of the little sports car's delay are hopefully nothing more than the motoring press looking for problems that just aren't there. Fight the hype.