So it looks like the June 1st date has been told to others as well so that may be a legitimate date. I heard that date on Tuesday this week from a Toyota training rep that was at my dealership.
I did some "investigating" in Dealer Daily, which is a Toyota dealer's inventory system and information center for us to use. I was looking at January's TVO (Total Vehicle Output) which shows how my region, Central Atlantic Toyota, is ordering their cars for the month and I came across an interesting piece of info. According to the model launch/production schedule in there it looks like production starts in Japan in February on the FR-S. It didn't have an exact date or production numbers but it just said that 2013MY FR-S production starts in February. I believe it's probably around a month of transit time via boat (vessel) to the US depending on which coast it's going to. They will probably sit on the cars for a little before actually releasing them to dealers so I think it will be late April to May at the EARLIEST that the US will see the cars.
I remember when the FJ first came out I was talking to the truck driver that was dropping off our first one, which was the one I bought, that he said the vehicles were at the port for almost a month before they released them to dealers. The reason was that they wanted to make sure there was enough vehicles for all the dealers that the port provided vehicles for before they started shipping them so you wouldn't have a few dealers getting the car and others having to wait a few more weeks to get their first one. They want to make sure that all dealers receive their first one around the same time. I see no reason the FR-S to be any different.
I contacted our Scion manager about the First 86 program and unfortunately he has heard nothing from our Scion rep about the program yet. I don't know if it's because we were selected as a dealer for one of the "First 86" or that Scion is dropping the ball on this program through lack of communication. I really hope it's neither one of them, but I hope Scion doesn't turn this into a cluster**** either.
Can anyone in this thread tell me if you chose Freedom Scion in Hamburg, PA as your dealer? In a way, I kinda hope that we aren't a "First 86" dealer because when we get our first one, I want to drive it and if it's spoken for already, that won't happen, unless it's mine!
I'm going to have my inventory manager make our first preference a Hot Lava manual if we don't have any pre-orders when the time comes to order them. You know, "just-in-case" I'm in the position to make a purchase at that time and don't want to wait.
EDIT: Uh oh, looks like the custer**** is what's happening judging by the posts since I started typing my reply....
Ruskymx