The Subaru BRZ and Toyota FT-86 will be reasonably priced drivers’ cars, with stylish looks, rear- drive and a sweet, 200—odd-bhp, flat-four engine and practical too. No one has made such a full-on effort at an affordable sports car since Mazda rolled out the MX-5.
Bring it on!!!!
You could make most of a Top ‘humps pack out of all the Toybaru concept cars of the past two years. But we’re getting to the climax. The final versions are being unwrapped and production starts in spring.
But how much teasing do you want? Have all these concepts brought your anticipation to a fever pitch?
Or are you tired of all these minutely different cars? Why so many of them?
Show cars can be used to remould our view of entire car companies. That’s why Toyota first showed the FT-86 in 2.009. Six months before, the firm got a new boss, Akio Toyoda, grandson of Toyota Motors’ founder. He thought what we think: the range was too boxing.
He agreed with Subaru to make a new sports car.
So a concept was hurriedly shown, to try to make us love Toyota. It wasn’t the real car; the real car was nowhere near drawn up yet. The cars on the right show how it gradually emerged over the next two years.
If you think you’re being over-teased, give them a break. If they showed us nothing, we’d be even more frustrated. And it’s actually been quite fast – from the first concept to production will be just 30 months. For a new car, new platform, new engine and new factory, that’s astoundingly rapid especially with an economic collapse and a catastrophic tsunami along the way.