Toyota Pushing Daimler Partnership

Toyota's moves as of late are pretty interesting. It seems to be on a quest for partnerships with various automakers all over the world. The most recent finalized deal was the partnership with Aston Martin on the Cygnet minicar.

Other than that, Toyota had been pushing General Motors to continue the NUMMI partnership, and even was rumored to have offered GM it's Hybrid Synergy Drive technology and the ability to build a rebadged Toyota Prius at the plant. 

Now, it is being speculated that the company is pursuing a partnership with Daimler. To me it seems like a desperate play by Toyota to help try to secure some prestige for it's faltering Lexus brand. BMW is overtaking the brand as top luxury manufacturer in the United States and they're trying to expand the brand to international markets like Europe, which hasn't turned out too well. 

I doubt that Daimler would be interested in doing something like this. Why give Lexus that prestige? I don't understand why it'd be something that Daimler would consider either. Develop your own cars; you're doing fine as it is. 

The proposed partnership would consist of Toyota producing versions of the A-Class and B-Class on it's MC platform, and even co-development of the Lexus LS and S-Class. (I almost laughed there). Good luck with that one, Toyota! I'd be shocked to see any LS/S-Class co-development work be done. Stranger things have happened though....