The Independent Review: Toyota GT86

[Boxer-4]

http://www.independent.co.uk/life-st...6-6284861.html



Price: From £25,000 (on sale June)
Engine: 1,998cc, flat-four cylinders, 16 valves, 200bhp
Transmission: Six-speed gearbox (six-speed auto optional), rear-wheel drive
Performance: 143mph, 0-62 in under 7 seconds, 42mpg official average, CO2 under 160g/km

"If a car is not fun, it is not a car," said Toyota CEO Akio Toyoda at the Tokyo motor show as he revealed the company's new slogan: "Fun to drive, again."

It is a response to the firm's battering over the past year, which began with a media witch-hunt over the (extremely rare) sticking-accelerator trouble, in which the consumer had to be all-powerful in their right to be incompetent and in which Toyota fell too readily on the corporate sword.

Then there was the Tohoku earthquake followed by the Thai floods, which destroyed the supply chains of every Japanese car company. Against this background, Toyota's new GT 86 comes like a new beginning.

"Car enthusiasts are bored with cars that cost too much in which the driver doesn't do enough and which rely on hugely powerful turbo engines, four-wheel drive and massive grip," says the GT 86's development engineer, Yoshi Sasak. He's right. Technology has taken over, and what are we to do with such ludicrously fast cars? It's not as if we can really enjoy them on public roads.

Here, then, is Toyota's new sports coupé, created in collaboration with Subaru, whose own version is called BRZ. So it has a Subaru-signature flat-four engine, of 2.0 litres and producing 200bhp without the turbocharger usual in fast Subarus. But instead of the now-usual front-wheel drive or Subaru-style four-wheel drive, it has rear-wheel drive.
Among this size and price of sporting coupé, this once-default configuration is now unique. Yet the opportunity it can give for microfine control in a corner is the best configuration for driving fun. Usefully, Subaru already had the four-wheel drive Impreza; remove the drive to the front wheels and you have the basis of the GT 86's underpinnings.

The looks owe a little to the 1960s Toyota 2000 GT, an exotic, slightly E-type-like sports car made famous (once the roof had been chopped off) in the Bond film You Only Live Twice. The "86" part alludes to the riotously entertaining, rear-wheel drive, Toyota Corolla GT Coupé Twin-Cam of the 1980s whose internal codename was AE86. Currently the only sensible-money sports car with a front engine and drive to the rear wheels is the Mazda MX-5, and that's a roadster. So the GT 86 stands alone as the coupé that car nuts have craved for years.

I am pleased to report that all of the promise is fulfilled, and more. The engine is a keen, fizzy thing, its note a mix of rasp and throb, its response instant and wonderfully easy to meter. This, plus crisp, sensitive, natural-feeling steering – it's electrically assisted, amazingly, and surely the best yet of its type – fills the driver with the intoxicating confidence of being fully, entirely in control, even on a damp, slippery test track. More power in a corner brings on a gentle drift, helped by the limited-slip differential; this car does exactly what you want it to, in a way many recently qualified drivers will probably never have experienced before now.

It's fast, but not madly so. You need to work the revvy engine quite hard, but that's part of the fun. The interior looks and feels good in a racy, functional way; you sit low, and the two tiny back seats are more suitable for chattels than people.

Above all, though, it's the purity and simplicity of this car's character that really appeals, and the huge entertainment it offers while also managing to be quiet enough, and supple enough over bumps, to be usable every day. This is how a sports coupé should be. I want one, badly.

[carbonBLUE]

Originally Posted by Boxer-4

Performance: 143mph, 0-62 in under 7 seconds, 42mpg official average, CO2 under 160g/km

.....wait... what? so its got almost prius like economy...
but.....
rwd, limited slip ,best EPS feel steering, ring framed, 200hp 2.0 L, 2700 lbs, awesome suspension, one of the lowest CoG known to production cars....

and its not a miata hybrid and it has 4 seats...

EDIT.... ohh yeah and its cheap?... im still confused....

[Spaceywilly]

Originally Posted by carbonBLUE

.....wait... what? so its got almost prius like economy...
but.....
rwd, limited slip ,best EPS feel steering, ring framed, 200hp 2.0 L, 2700 lbs, awesome suspension, one of the lowest CoG known to production cars....

and its not a miata hybrid and it has 4 seats...

EDIT.... ohh yeah and its cheap?... im still confused....

42uk mpg is about 30 us mpg

One imperial gallon is approximately equal to 1.201 U.S. gallons.

[carbonBLUE]

Originally Posted by Spaceywilly

42uk mpg is about 30 us mpg

One imperial gallon is approximately equal to 1.201 U.S. gallons.

ok sorry but still that's 35 mpg average.... that's still a lot in today's standards

42 imperial mpgs + magic = 35 us mpgs

maybe 42 highway 32 city DDD i can only hope

[miata]

It converts to 35 mpg (USA) Yes. I love it! Very impressed!!

[ayau]

Those numbers are impressive considering what my Honda Fit gets.

[Spaceywilly]

The test cycle is also not the same, but yeah that is not bad. It's not surprising though since it's 2.0L NA 4 cylinder with DI, light weight, designed for low drag, and premium fuel. I bet it will get great mileage in real life, I'm usually able to beat EPA by a few MPGs. 40mpg doesn't seem out of the question tbh if you do a whole tank on the highway and stay below 60. Realistically I expect it be low 30s though in normal driving.

[carbonBLUE]

Originally Posted by Spaceywilly

The test cycle is also not the same, but yeah that is not bad. It's not surprising though since it's 2.0L NA 4 cylinder with DI, light weight, designed for low drag, and premium fuel. I bet it will get great mileage in real life, I'm usually able to beat EPA by a few MPGs. 40mpg doesn't seem out of the question tbh if you do a whole tank on the highway and stay below 60. Realistically I expect it be low 30s though in normal driving.

for most of us, this will be very spirited driving

[MiguelAE86]

So this car gets better MPG than my friends accord, looks better, drives better, steers better, does about everything else better, and its a REAL car with an affordable price tag? I'm so glad I religiously waited 4-5 years for this car. Seriously, I'm proud of myself lol.

[serialk11r]

Test cycles are different yea, but how about we look at it like this: the car is "under 160g/km". The Lotus Elise 1.6 with the Toyota 1ZR-FAE engine is rated at 149g/km in the UK (is that same as EU test cycle?). The Lotus weighs about 700-800 pounds less, and has approximately the same drag. The Lotus likely uses a similar gearbox, with similar revs. The Lotus has only 80% of the displacement, and Valvematic cuts part load pumping losses to 0.

Meanwhile the FRS has a throttle plate, and higher displacement, so on paper it looks like it will need to work much harder on the highway. But the fuel consumption rating is only barely higher than the Lotus! 50% more power, 40% more mass, 25% more torque, less advanced valvetrain, but <10% more fuel usage? That's crazy. Spray guided direct injection seems like pretty potent stuff. Now imagine they swapped in a Valvematic system...better than a Prius? :O

[Giccin]

Originally Posted by Spaceywilly

42uk mpg is about 30 us mpg

One imperial gallon is approximately equal to 1.201 U.S. gallons.

Originally Posted by carbonBLUE

ok sorry but still that's 35 mpg average.... that's still a lot in today's standards

42 imperial mpgs + magic = 35 us mpgs

maybe 42 highway 32 city DDD i can only hope

With some hypermiling its possible! lol

All it takes is some resistance in driving like a racecar driver on the road.

[carbonBLUE]

Originally Posted by serialk11r

Test cycles are different yea, but how about we look at it like this: the car is "under 160g/km". The Lotus Elise 1.6 with the Toyota 1ZR-FAE engine is rated at 149g/km in the UK (is that same as EU test cycle?). The Lotus weighs about 700-800 pounds less, and has approximately the same drag. The Lotus likely uses a similar gearbox, with similar revs. The Lotus has only 80% of the displacement, and Valvematic cuts part load pumping losses to 0.

Meanwhile the FRS has a throttle plate, and higher displacement, so on paper it looks like it will need to work much harder on the highway. But the fuel consumption rating is only barely higher than the Lotus! 50% more power, 40% more mass, 25% more torque, less advanced valvetrain, but <10% more fuel usage? That's crazy. Spray guided direct injection seems like pretty potent stuff. Now imagine they swapped in a Valvematic system...better than a Prius? :O

soo... your on topic but off topic... yes its cool 50mpgs would be possible with d4-s in the 1.6 valvematic 1ZR-FAE in the new elise...

and on another note, adding valvematic to the FA20 would also be another world of tuning nightmares to add onto the d4-s no one really knows about either.... 42 mpgs average would be possible with such a set up but maybe it will be left for the latter years of the ft86 but right now im happy with a 35mpg average its about 4 mpgs better then the closest competitor... and the closest competitor, well its nowhere near the checklist the ft86 completes for me... there are too many rights for wrongs to start popping up to change my mind, i personally wouldnt have cared about a 25mpg highway estimate if it was aggressivly tuned...

35 us mpg average just means 2 things to me
1 gas stations will be less common than my current car = more time driving
2 the potential for power to be unlocked because of how conservative the tune is..

[serialk11r]

@ above
I guess you could say that I was sorta off topic. But this direct injection system appears to be rather amazing, if it improves so much over port injection that it can compensate for pumping losses, greater frictional loss, and greater power requirement. Might be some good tuning potential.

[carbonBLUE]

i dont mind off topic if it does incorporate the current topic and brings up a relevant issue/possible improvement that hasn't been brought up before, i could see the possibility of valvematic being introduced to the fa20, which bring up a question...

sorry for more off topicness

what is the fa20 using for valve timing/spark/fuel injection?

is d4-s a stand alone system that has its own timing seperate from vvt-i ,valvematic, avcs???