Are Toyota and Lexus planning to use Mazda’s straight-six and new platform?

Japan’s Best Car magazine

has what appears to be a whopper of a

rumor

. The mag said it scooped

Mazda’s development of a straight-six engine

that

Mazda

only revealed in March, the carmaker having buried the information in a financial statement.

By way of Lexus Enthusiast

and

according to Google translate, Best Car writes

that as it was speaking to a

Toyota

source on an unrelated matter, the magazine found out that Mazda’s work on the straight-six was predicated on the engine’s use in Toyota Group vehicles, which includes

Lexus

.

Here’s the account of how the engine and Mazda’s coming front-engined rear-drive platform, dubbed “Large Architecture,” will make their way to Toyota City:

The first appearance for the straight-six, predicted to come in at a hair under 3.0 liters, is the Mazda Atenza/Mazda6 successor coming around 2022. The powertrain will get a 48-volt

hybrid

system for increased

fuel economy

, and the automaker’s said to be considering a

plug-in hybrid

version.

Toyota’s first shot at the platform and the straight-six will be whatever fills the slot of the Japanese-market Mark-X sedan. We once had a version of the Mark-X in the U.S. as the Toyota Cressida. In Japan, it’s sold as a rear- and all-wheel drive option to the

Camry

. The Mark-X is slated to end production in December this year — a “sporty four-door coupe” on Mazda’s platform and with Mazda’s engine eventually taking its place.

Lexus has a number of plans for the components from Hiroshima. The next

Lexus IS

is said to evolve from the current sedan, using a Lexus V6 but migrating to Toyota’s TNGA platform. Best Car says the IS after that, perhaps sometime around 2026, will hop onto Mazda’s new platform and use the inline-six engine.

Before that, the replacement for the Lexus RC in 2022 will sit on the Mazda platform and get that inline-six. What’s more, Lexus will introduce a new model to slot between the $64,750 RC and the $92,950 LC employing Mazda’s architecture and engine.

Best Car

says the model will act as a “next car” for RC owners, but we can’t tell if the magazine means a two-door or a four-door coupe; the article also says the Lexus model will compete with the

Audi A7

.

Toyota and Mazda partnered up in 2016 on technology sharing.

Best Car

‘s take is that, as was done on the

Supra

, Toyota is picking up all the tech it can from suitable sources so that it can continue to sell models that don’t make sense to develop alone. If the side effect of that is getting big sporty Mazdas to go with it, well, so much the better.