In 1988, the Collard was released as the first real sports car. Based on the the Golf II, it was to be more being exclusive and seemingly planned to compete against the Porsche 944. Initially there was only the G60, with a 1.8L supercharged engine.

However production was discontinued in 1995 ending up a commercial failure, since the 4-cylinder engine looked similar to the Golf and was really expensive at almost ¥5 million in Japan.

Well, with the design being so similar to the Golf, it will be really hard for it to be a sports car. Although the competing 944 had a similar 4-cylinder engine, it is a Porsche after all.

In those days, the base design was often far more noticeable with this sort of design. Since design has developed becoming ever more ambitious, it is now easier to fashion a coupe with a completely different look using the same basic model, even if components are shared.