Re-reading our road test of the Toyota GT86
has reminded me of a few things I’d forgotten. The GT86’s overall weight, as
tested, was just 1,235kg, balanced 53 per cent over the front; not because
that’s just how it ended up, but because that’s what Toyota wanted. Its
engineers felt that a slight forward bias gave the optimum handling balance.
The ‘86’ isn’t just a nod to the old AE86. It also refers to both the bore and
stroke (in mm) of the boxer engine. The tyres are 215/45 R17s.
And although Toyota usually strives to
share as many components as possible between vehicles to maximise economies of
scale, almost the opposite was true with the 86. Only nine per cent of things
fitted here are shared with other Toyotas.
GT86
is a wickedly poised sports car with terrifically communicative steering
The 86 duly scored five road test stars and
won our Britain’s Best Driver’s Car contest. Now, this example is ours for a
year.
I’ll be running it, and it has arrived in a
pleasing specification: with the manual transmission that is standard, metallic
paint, rear parking sensors and Touch & Go, a $1,285 option that comprises
a large touchscreen with satellite navigation, a reversing camera, DAB audio,
Bluetooth and a USB socket. It feels to me like you’d want all of that, but
their absence as standard is one of the reasons the price can be held down to
$42,965, I guess.
There are minor hints of that elsewhere,
too. Cabin plastics are in places a touch brittle, and the engine bay is
unadorned with the same ‘GT86 Orange’ (all colours are named ‘GT86…’,
excellently) as the outside of the body.
Driving
position is nigh-on perfect and there is sufficient room for all but the
extremely tall
Toyota will tell you that there are other
reasons for that, too: if you don’t finish areas that are hidden from the
elements and invisible to the eye in the full paint treatment, you save weight.
And should you do that, you have no need for anything more potent than the
197bhp 2.0-litre normally aspirated engine that sits — very low — beneath the
bonnet.
I like that purity — the unfettered reviness
that means peak power doesn’t arrive until 7,000rpm, with torque (only 151lb ft
of it) peaking at 6,400rpm.
It leaves the Toyota at an ‘about right’
sort of pace. Our GPS stopwatch clicked at 7.4sec when the road test car passed
60mph, which wouldn’t have most hot hatchbacks worried but is good enough for
me. More power wouldn’t hurt — this is clearly a chassis that can take it — but
as a rule, I prefer a naturally aspirated delivery to a turbocharged one, so
I’m pretty content with my lot.
Rear
space is modest and will suffice for children and adults over short trips
Part of my ‘lot’ is also rather more
practicality than I’ve become accustomed to with the long-term test car that I
have been running and will soon be departing, a Jaguar F-type roadster.
The GT86 is much smaller, and much cheaper,
but vastly more practical. The +2 seats don’t leave any significant room behind
the driver, but with the front passenger’s seat slid forward you can sit two on
the left-hand side, which means I can take both nippers on the school run. The
boot — 243 litres — doesn’t sound huge but, ditto, can swallow all of our road
test gubbins with ease.
Where it scores less convincingly is in the
sound quality of the stereo and a level of road noise that makes a Bluetooth
phone conversation a bit shouty at motorway speeds. But then this a $42,775,
1,235kg sports car; you can’t have everything and, as we noted in the road
test, where does trying to give you everything get you? More speakers and
soundproofing add weight, which makes the car slower, so you need more power,
and then the extra weight wants more stopping, but bigger brakes add weight, so
it needs wider tyres for more grip, and they add weight and their low sidewalls
corrupt the ride and the steering…
A
boxer configuration helps to keep the engine weight low and nearer to the
middle of the car
Is there anything that could be changed
without upsetting this precious balance? I’d like it if the steering wheel
reached closer to my chest. I wouldn’t mind if the short gearlever were shorter
still. But otherwise, I am perfectly content and could not be more looking
forward to finding out whether things will stay that way during the next 12
months.
