Toyota denies in talks to cooperate with Daimler

Toyota Motor Corp denied on Thursday a report that it was considering building derivatives of Mercedes-Benz's A-Class and B-Class cars on its own platform to better utilise its European plants in the long term.

"We are denying this completely," Toyota spokesman Yuta Kaga said in Tokyo. "There is no truth to anything written in the article."

Citing sources at Toyota, German magazine auto motor und sport reported on Wednesday that the company was thinking about the generation of Mercedes compacts due to follow the upcoming version, which is scheduled to be introduced in 2011.

Typically, model lifecycle can last at least 6 years, so any production at a Toyota factory would not be likely until at least 2017.

According to the article, the two companies could also look at sharing development costs and even examine the possible joint production of Toyota's Lexus LS flagship luxury saloon and its Mercedes counterpart, the S-Class, the best-selling car in its segment.

Daimler called the report "speculation", declining to comment further.