The Tokyo Auto Salon is hardly the apogee of car shows, but it has nonetheless played host to a car that could well turn into the most exciting Toyota for absolutely ages. The FT-86 G Sports Concept might sound like a fitness programme for US college basketball players, but it's the latest iteration of the concept that will eventually become the new Celica, aka the 'Toyobaru'.
The portmanteau is, as you'll have guessed, based on the fact Subaru has its hand in the car too. In fact, Toyota and Subaru are in cahoots with this, but it's far more sensational to call the car the next Celica, so that's what we do. The car's badged Toyota, and Subaru hasn't said yet what its plans are for its own version of the car.
At the moment, what's brilliant about Subaru's involvement is, obviously, the whole Impreza engine and drivetrain thing. Mind, four-wheel drive it isn't - the rear wheels get all the horses - but Subaru will provide a turbocharged boxer petrol engine up front. Sadly there's no word on power yet, but as we all know, it could be anywhere between 150- and 350bhp. We hope for the latter, though if they keep the car light, it's more feasible that the former will be a closer figure to start with, making it an affordable driver's car.
We've seen
the FT-86 Concept before, though this one has slightly different front end styling, a sporty body kit and exactly he sort of bonnet treatment that the pre-production cars sent to the set of
Fast and Furious 5 will get. (We made that up, by the way, but if it doesn't happen we'll be amazed.) There's a big spoiler at the back, and a suitably well matched diffuser housing a pair of fat pipes. It rolls on 19-inch rims and looks slammed because it sits a full 30mm lower than the car we saw last year (2009).
Like Nissan, Toyota is all over Gran Turismo and the PS3 thing, so this car has a GPS unit developed with Polyphony, the makers of the aforementioned console racing game, which will record the car's lap times. Nothing too special there, except that your exact real life lap can then be downloaded into the game for you to watch or race against virtually, allowing you to see exactly how bad/heroic your unbridled driving really is.
The FT-86 will see the soft lighting of a Japanese Toyota showroom in 2011, with Europe to follow, probably in 2012.
Mark Nichol - 18 Jan 2010
