Toyota GR86 v Mazda MX-5 v Alpine A110 GT (EVO Magazine Review)
 

Toyota GR86 v Mazda MX-5 v Alpine A110 GT



From EVO magazine. For those unfamiliar with this magazine, it's a UK sports car journal and in my personal opinion one of the most reliable sources when it comes to feedback on how good of a sports car is in terms of feel and fun to drive. And I swear I'm not saying this because of this particular review. They've been nailing their reviews for over 2 decades.



https://media.evo.co.uk/image/privat...feature-10.jpg




https://www.evo.co.uk/sports-cars/20...alpine-a110-gt


Hands down well worth the read. The details alone are worth it.

Enjoyed this review. Have loved Evo for many years. My only complaint is their overtly obvious Porsche bias.

This is the first review I have ever seen that says that they think the Gen1 is better looking than the Gen2. I figured Tcoat would have done a victory lap by now.

I think it's just Porsche. Personally, in my many years of following sports cars, the two cars that are unbelievably competitive are Porsche and Corvette. And I say "competitive" not the best. What I mean by this, is that even if you manage to beat Porsche with a certain product, they will soon produce another Porsche that edges out that product. They've been like this for decades. Corvette has been like this too. I can't think of other manufacturers that are like this. I guess the golden rule of compete or parish applies to sports cars as well.



If you look at the Porsche lineup today, they have every single thing you can think of. If you spec your imaginary sports car in your head and then go shopping for what manufacturer ticks the most marks, you will likely end up with a Porsche.



I personally hands down prefer the 86 over any Porsche product but this is down to personal preferences and driving style not that I think the 86 is objectively a better car. And in any case, the cars I'm lusting after right now are Lotus Emira and Corvette C7 GS or Z06.

Haha yep, I’m a Lotus fanatic, so it’s always the Porsches they get compared to.

I find it interesting the way they say the GT86 changed the sports car landscape, which is an idea I've read in other GR86 reviews. Yet, I feel like all you could read about the first gens back when they were released was how underpowered they were.

In any case, as nice as the GR86 is, it costs upwards of 50 grand on the road in France, and even then you can't have one. They're sold out.

I revere the A110 for being such a pure drivers car and would absolutely have one if I lived in Europe. It's silly but a big part of my respect for it comes from the fact that James May and especially Gordon Murray bought one.

The 110 instantly sprang to mind when I first saw the 2nd gen (below is the pic) and that was only reinforced as more details came and people started driving it. That weighed heavily in my decision to actually buy one. So reading this review, from EVO no less, is a bit wow.

https://static1.hotcarsimages.com/wo...46500936_n.jpg

I can't wrap my head around this. I mean I get the whole "won't be able to pass tests in a few years" thing but why soooo few now? I can't imagine there is any regulatory cap on the max number they can import due to the expectation it won't pass future tests...

Beats me... My only guess is that knowing the car's doomed in Europe anyway, they'd rather sell those example in a market with higher margins or where there will be a longer term interest in the car.

I can't understand why they went through the trouble of certifying them for the EU market only to sell so few of them.

When the first gens came out there was little talk of how "underpowered" they were. They were also heralded as changing the landscape at that time.
The whole underpowered thing came later as the internet crucified it based on numbers. Most reviewers said the power could be increased a bit but was not unsatisfactory given the goals of the design. Then the masses, most who had never sat in one much less drove it, decided it was woefully slow and that was the rep it gained regardless of what the early reviewers said.
Now with the second gen being faster everybody looks back and says "SEE TOLD YOU IT WAS SLOW" which is not realistic at all considering there are 12 years between the designs and the second gen bloody well better be faster than the first.

Sad to read the 86 is no longer for sale in the UK because of pedestrian impact laws.

Too bad they can’t teach the fool pedestrians to look up from their phones once in a while

Yeah, doesn’t make sense to me given all the slab faced 2.5T SUVs on the roads these days.

Looks like the issue is the bonnet-to-engine distance. Which is weird, you'd think a flat four would be well-placed in that department. But maybe they're measuring distance to the dressed block, in which case it's true the intake manifold or alternator are fairly close to the bonnet.

And SUVs are indeed well-placed in that area: they tend to have lots of "soft" metal over a relatively small engine.

I also read that end-of-sale might be linked to absence of automatic emergency braking on manual cars, but I'm not so sure about that one.

i thought the demise was due to emissions/engine size?

i thought they're slated to add AEB in the near future to the manuals, as most other markets require it, so i don't believe that's the reason.

Toyota UK stated it's not due to emissions at all.

Yeah the AEB thing isn't very credible as many manuals have it, and it seems like mostly a programming thing. Reengineering the engine compartment, however, is a different matter.