Toyota GT 86 Revealed

Toyota GT 86 - apparently, it's as wide as a London Bus

The Toyota GT 86 – which we all know as the Toyota FT-86 – has been revealed by Toyota UK ahead of its debut at the Tokyo Motor Show this week.

It’s the Toyota GT 86, not the FT-86. But this is Toyota’s ‘affordable’ sports coupe that seems to have been coming since the new millennium arrived. And now it’s here.

The ’86’ in the name is to pay homage to the Corolla Levin AE86, and the ’86 bit will be used in the JDM where it will be called simply the Toyota 86, and in America it will arrive as the Scion F-RS. So now you know.

As we predicted, the GT 86 isn’t quite the bargain sports car we were expecting. Toyota had proclaimed it would be a ‘£20k sports car’, but it’s not. It’ll cost you £28k when it arrives in the Summer of 2012.

But what of the GT 86 itself? Is it what we expected, apart from price? Well, pretty much.

It gets a four-pot boxer engine with 197bhp and 151lb/ft of torque, but Toyota isn’t letting on just how well it performs, but at 1180kg it should be decent.

You can have your GT 86 with either a six-speed manual or six-speed auto with flappy paddles. The engine, as we’ve heard constantly, is set very low and almost under the feet of the driver for a 53/47 balance, and Toyota claim the 4240mm (167″) long GT 86 is the most compact four-seater in production.

Talking of dimensions, the GT 86 is just 1285mm (50.6″) high, but it is 2570mm wide (101″), which in real money is 8′ 5″. Which seems extraordinarily wide to us for a compact car. So we read the press release again. It says:

The GT 86 measures 4,240mm long, 1,285mm high and 2,570mm wide, dimensions which make it the most compact four-seater sports car available today.

But it can’t be right – that would make the GT 86 the widest car on the road. So we’ve sent Toyota an email and we’ll update later.

Still, although it’s more expensive than Toyota promised, it’s as good-looking as we expected and should, with 197bhp and decent weight, offer plenty of fun.

Even if it appears to be as wide as a London bus.

Update 28/11: As we suspected, the information Toyota sent us on the GT 86 dimensions was incorrect. The 2570mm figure is in fact the wheelbase of the GT 86, whilst the width is actually 1775mm (69.8″). Which is much better.