The Original Toyota GT86 Shows The Folly Of Trying To Please Car Enthusiasts

Car enthusiasts. Apart from car designers they’re absolutely the worst people imaginable (and I say that as a car enthusiast and designer). You can’t say or write anything remotely contentious without getting metaphorically duffed up – I should know. OEMs constantly get it in the neck for ignoring enthusiast demands and getting on with the business of building cars they know (or hope) will sell to normal customers. ‘If only this car came equipped with x, y and z it would sell thousands more!’ Or the classic “I would have bought one of those but it costs $10k too much!” And then there is the old “I was interested in getting that car but twenty years ago the OEM let a minor defect get out which was blown out of all proportion on the forums so I’ll never buy one their cars again.”

This fickle attitude manifested in the return of a much storied and much loved nameplate: The Toyota Supra. At first the A90 was decried for containing too much Munich seasoning. Eventually it gained a manual transmission and a cheaper two liter model and it still struggled to sell more than 6 thousand units a year worldwide. Oh yeah, it was too expensive! Back in 1993 the inflation adjusted price of an A80 turbo was getting on for $86k – they were never the accessible rear wheel drive everyday coupe that exists solely in enthusiasts’ minds. Now the A90 is dead. Twenty years hence people wearing a faded tee shirt with a stick shift graphic on it will be bemoaning the death of cars like this even though they didn’t buy any at the time. Catering to these entitled babies-on-wheels is a tricky business, because like me they are never happy.

If you’ve been following along with this series for a bit you’ll know it’s not just about what’s good and why or what’s bad and why, but what examining a car’s design context and history can teach us (or rather you because obviously I know it all already). It affords me the opportunity to talk about other aspects of car design and conception beyond just the drawing pretty pictures-part that some online commentators assume is the only thing (apart from talking utter bollocks) that car designers are capable of.

Because we’re a dynamic and membership focused media organization at the Autopian, one of our mottos is customer service fourth – we listen to our members and then immediately get sidetracked by looking at cars shaped like boats or boats that are classed as trains, which actually happened the afternoon I started writing this. Recently a reader got in touch and wanted an expert take on the Toyota GT(R)86. More specifically comparing the first generation which they disliked and the second generation, which they adored. This sounded like a job for me so I’m here to deliver. Less facetiously it gives me the chance to cover in more depth a couple of things I’ve talked about tangentially in other articles; namely why cars targeted at enthusiasts must cater to a wider market and how the design of a car evolves over time.

How The GT86 Came Into Being

The story of the modern “86” begins with the Toyota FT-HS (FT standing for Future Toyota) hybrid sports car concept shown at the 2007 Detroit show. A joint product of Toyota’s CALTY advanced design studio and the Advanced Product Strategy Group, it was envisaged as a 3.5 liter V6 with associated hybrid system combining for around 400bhp – a sports car for the eco-conscious generation.

An odd mix of sharp creases and more rounded surfaces, the cab forward proportion and openings behind the doors gave the impression of the FT-HS being mid-engined but the powerplant was up front. Visually and conceptually, reall,y the FT-HS was a progenitor for the later 2014 FT-1 concept that became the A90 Supra; its relevance here is that it demonstrated Toyota was thinking seriously about a rear wheel drive enthusiast-targeted car, something they didn’t sell at the time.

The concept that really marked the genesis of the GT86 was the FT-86 which debuted at the 2009 Tokyo show, designed by Toyota Europe Design Development (ED²) in the Cote d’Azur in France. Nice work if you can get it.

This Flash Red five seat coupe contained hints of the earlier FT-HS but, with realistic sized wheels and calmer exterior surfacing, it was a lot closer to a realistic production proposal than fever dream show car.

The typical concept bullshit was mostly limited to the interior – funky secondary controls around the instrument binnacle and a CD slot concealed behind a zipper — fun and original but not a hope in hell of making production. The expensive 3.5 V6 hybrid powertrain bit the dust and was replaced by a more prosaic 2.0 boxer engine, and the 86 moniker left you in no doubt precisely where this new model was targeted.

Toyota then wheeled out the FT-86 II at the Geneva show in 2011. Again the work of the ED² studio it was a gussied up version of the production car that finally broke cover at the Tokyo show in December of that year and appeared in showrooms in 2012. Subaru had recently started staying with Toyota at weekends so the new coupe was a joint effort; Subaru supplied the engine and built the whole car at their Gunma plant. Initially available in the U.S. and Canada as the Scion FR-S, it was called the Toyota GT86 everywhere else. The Subaru version nobody cared about was the BRZ. [Ed Note: Some people prefer the Subi! -DT]. 

The brief was clear enough – create and build a stylish car that wouldn’t empty your wallet and was fun to drive on the road, much like the original AE86 in the eighties. On the surface it looks like Toyota got things mostly right, but if we cast our designer’s eye over it and consider the whole execution, some odd choices were made.

Toyota made a big deal about this car being the spiritual successor to the AE86. The bore and stroke of the engine are both 86mm. The diameter of the exhaust is 86mm. There’s an 86 roundel flanked by opposing pistons in the scalloped area of the front fender. So far so on the nose.

The new car had a trunk as opposed to a hatch, even though part of their spiel to the aftermarket crowd was the ability to fold the rear seats flat so a set of wheels and tires for track days could be chucked in the back. Instead of a buzzing straight four motor it had a throbbing cast-iron stove of a boxer motor with a hole in the torque curve. A car aimed squarely at people who used to read Tarmac Scraping Hatchback and Swimsuit Model magazine on the toilet but now had real adult money to spend, it ended up being a simulacrum of an OEM tuner car created from expedient ingredients that sounded good on paper, but to some didn’t quite add up to sum of it’s parts. [Ed Note: Many people loved the BRZ/FR-S, though that hole in the torque curve was indeed strange. -DT]. 

Critiquing The Design

When it comes to the exterior of the GT86, there’s not a huge amount wrong with how it looks (sorry John). The proportions are good, the surfacing is clean and it’s not trying to be something it isn’t. You view this car and understand what it is straight away.

I think the shapes of the lighting units both front and rear are out of place and sit uneasily with the surrounding bodywork, and some of the detailing like the diffuser feel contrived. Other than being a modern rear wheel drive two door coupe there is nothing visually remarkable about it. The overall effect is fussily acceptable rather than heart-wrenchingly captivating – it’s mildly anodyne with a few odd details in the bland grand Toyota tradition.

Cars like this I always think of as being a bit “thin” – lacking in substance and depth. There’s no love, personality or overarching style to draw you in and keep you there once you get past the driving experience. Offering special editions with trick aero and suspension pieces is admirable, but didn’t broaden the appeal to offer anyone outside the enthusiast target market a compelling reason to buy one.

Narrow appeal aside, one of the key issues with the design of the GT-86 is how Toyota marketed it. Toyota released a series of videos with chief designer Akihiro Nagaya outlining how the exterior of the GT-86 was directly influenced by the Toyota 2000GT – a Yamaha built straight six Japanese E-Type that went on sale in 1967. I thought the GT86 was supposed to be a modern incarnation of the original Hachi-Roku? Now it’s here you’re pointing out how the curved body side and DLO (the outline of the side glazing) and the humps on the instrument panel upper are meant to deliberately evoke a completely different car from forty five years ago?

While we’re about transposing visual motifs, those odd lighting shapes are meant to represent a piston and con-rod – something that is replicated again in the trim piece at the base of the gear shifter. I’m always against this sort of thing because taking A and slapping it on B and calling the result C is not useful design – it’s too literal an interpretation. This sort of post-modernist bullshit is fine for art, fashion, architecture or interior design if you enjoy that sort of playschool whimsy, but here it’s misplaced. A Memphis Group designed car as a thought exercise might amuse design bores but as a design movement the ideas and style of overt post-modernism are rarely suited to mainstream automobiles, even if it’s just sparingly done on the details. It feels corny to me but I’m a snob.

GT86 Becomes The GR86

The GT86 became the GR86 for the arrival of the 2021 second-generation car. More significant than the letter change was the concerted effort Toyota made to make the car more attractive to the wider market. The power deficit was addressed by punching the boxer motor out to 2.4 liters. Michelin Pilot Sport 4s replaced the Prius spec ditch finders on the first gen and the exterior was given an extensive makeover. Designed by Kosuke Kobo and Kazuhiko and led by chief designer Koichi Matsumoto, according to Kubo one the stated intentions was:

“to create a simple and timeless design by trimming away all excess, so customers can treasure it for a long time”.

Out went the odd lights and slightly fussy detailing for a much smoother, joined up muscular look. The scallop in the front fender which served no purpose other than providing somewhere to put the 86 logo was banished and replaced by a vent that neatly flows down to run along the rocker, adding solidity and width between the wheel arches.

The rear diffuser and lights are far tidier and compliment each other much better this time around. They look like they were drawn by an adult as opposed to someone coming off an all night Initial D bender. The trunk volume actually got smaller, demonstrating what a load of bollocks that spare set of wheels and tires thing was, and the trunk lid itself received a more convincing duck tail style spoiler ameliorating the need for aftermarket tea trays. It just looks like a completer and more grown up car.

It Needed Wider Appeal

None of these improvements should come as a rattling surprise. OEMs solicit feedback constantly – not just from customers who bought their car but crucially from those who didn’t.

A year or so after the on-sale date when it’s time to start thinking about the facelift or replacement they have a fairly good idea of what changes need to be made. At Land Rover during a quiet afternoon I would dig around on the company intranet and read these reports to try and better inform my work. Toyota had the best of intentions designing a car to appeal to a specific subset of the enthusiast market: In Japan the GT86 was even available with a stripped out interior, unpainted bumpers and steel wheels. But crucially by accommodating the type of customer who enjoys fitting aftermarket parts and personalizing their cars, they designed everyone else out. Regular drivers won’t be thanking you for engineering in easy oversteer when they gun the motor on a wet on-ramp.

The problem was the first generation was just too single minded to capture the type of customer who just wants to walk into a dealership, slap down a check, slip the sunglasses on and drive out in style.

Making it an unfinished blank canvas for drifting fans meant it had no hope of peeling customers out of Miatas. Toyota must have realized this quickly; it seems the reason the GT86 had a trunk instead of a hatch is because it was design protected from the beginning to offer a convertible version.

Design protection is when you try and anticipate future variants and make the necessary engineering accommodations. For example I would be floored if the new Dodge Charger cannot accommodate the Hemi V8 – even though it’s not currently in the product mix. We don’t know exactly why the convertible GT86 never happened – Toyota showed it twice in 2013 at the Geneva and Tokyo shows but Subaru chief Yasuyuki Yoshinaga said the car would need complete re-engineering but in the same interview admits there had been requests from the U.S. market for an open GT86. A convertible would certainly have added to the GT86’s rather lackluster sales figures, which cratered two years after release dropping from around 40k to just over 20k worldwide, suggesting everyone caught up in the initial hype bought one, and didn’t buy another. Sales picked up slightly when the second generation went on sale to about 25k, but because of the EU implementing Global Safety Regulations 2 , the latest model has been pulled from the European market.

Understanding The Market

It’s easy to sit at our keyboards and throw stones at enthusiasts for wanting what they can’t have and at OEMs for not building what enthusiasts want, but the reality is much more nuanced. A point I’ve made elsewhere before is we used to get cars like the original AE86 because they were the consequence not the conclusion – that car was built during Japan’s bubble period and was based on the previous generation Corolla from 1979.

The new car market has changed out of all recognition since then. The Miata has endured for thirty five years because it overcame the stigma of being a car for dog walkers and hairdressers. The ND made a marked departure from the cutesy design of previous generations. Mazda also offers the RF giving the security and style of a hardtop (if not the practicalities) for those customers who want it, cleverly without requiring any alterations to the existing body in white (the underlying structure). There’s even a smaller 1.5 liter engine available in non-US markets. With a niche vehicle you have to offer as much choice as possible – the success of cars like the Fiat 500 and Dodge Challenger and even the 911 is proof of that.

Toyota had become the beige cargo shorts and fleece normcore dad; boring and utterly dependable. The first GT86 was a hail Mary to prove they were still cool – ripping the fleece off to reveal a Pixies tee shirt underneath. Their intention was commendable but it took ten years and a second generation to become the car it arguably should have been in the first place.

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