Car of the week: Toyota GR86

If you want to be challenged to a street race at every traffic light you stop at, you should get yourself a Toyota GR86.

The GR86, the twin brother of the Subaru BRZ does feel very Subaru in general. Being made in the same factory and employing the same engine it’s hard to identify any differences between the two. However with some fine tuning conducted by Toyota, the GR86 becomes a bit more giddy, making it more excited and eager to oversteer.

This love child between Toyota and Subaru is an affordable sports car that puts the driver front and centre in a very stereotypical Japanese fashion. It was even designed based on the “waku doki” philosophy, focusing on heart-pounding excitement.

With a high-rigidity chassis that improves the driver’s feel for the road, alongside its low centre of gravity, light weight, and optimised suspension and steering, it really is a driver’s car. But no matter how good of a driver’s car it is, these features do raise a few concerns.

In the US, 47% of the GR86s sold were automatics, which feels contradictory given the initial concept of the car prioritising the drivers driving experience. You just lose your connection to the car when you drive an automatic, but this is the US, the country who can’t even spell tyre correctly.

In addition, due to its sporty design and driver priority, the GR86 is very favourable with the racing and modification community. One of the first modifications so many people try to make is changing this car’s suspension system.

The suspension is already finely tuned for the car; replacing this with coilovers ruins the entire flow of the vehicle. It just makes no sense. It’s the mechanical equivalent of having a Michelin-starred chef make you a meal and then adding ketchup; it just doesn’t work.

But all in all, the GR86, if left as stock, is a superb car. With a naturally aspirated 2.4-litre 4-cylinder boxer engine, an amazing car warranty, and four seats, it sounds like the perfect family car.

Now a lot of people argue that this car doesn’t have enough power, only producing 228 hp, which is less than the Renault Megane 265. Now for a sports car, this leaves a lot to be desired, but with the low weight to power ratio of 12.25 lb/hp, whilst also trying blend a sporty car with a reliable daily vehicle, you can’t actually complain about it.

Top speed	140 mph
0-60	6.1 seconds
How many units were sold	25,700
Cost when new	£29,995
How many Honda Civics will try and race you in a year?	423

Toyota GR86

So the Toyota GR86 is our car of the week, as I was behind a Honda Civic that nearly skidded off the road after trying to race a GR86 off the line at a traffic light. So in celebration of surviving that endeavour, the GR86 is our car of the week.

“#98, Toyota GR86, HPDE 1” by Scioto Photos is licensed under CC BY 2.0.