Originally Posted by m4a1mustang

I'm sure a lot of it is economies of scale, especially in the case of joint platform projects like we've seen from Subaru/Toyota, GM/Toyota, Ford/Mazda.

Plus, if you can play off of the expertise of competitors and work together through a combination of competition and cooperation (let's call it "coopetition") you help ensure the viability of the industry because you both working in a collective and competitive fashion to build a better product.

I'm sure in the case of the GT-R Nissan engineers shared their real-world experience with Ford as part of the licensing agreement... and what do you know... Ford decides 2011 was the right time to apply it to the Mustang. Both manufacturers win and in the end the consumer wins.