Toyota FT-86 Concept – Toybaru Sports Car
October 21, 2009 by Alborz Fallah
The long awaited hugely popular Toyota and Subaru affordable sports car was unveiled in concept form at the Tokyo Motorshow. The sport coupe is currently named the FT-86 Concept and was designed in France.
Toyota fans would instantly recognise the 86 badging as a spiritual successor to the AE86 sport coupe of the 1980s, a car based on the Corolla of the time.
The idea is simple, design a cheap, affordable, rear-wheel drive sports car to bring fun to the masses.
The design work was done at Toyota’s ED2 styling studio in France, Subaru will fit its 2.0-litre boxer engine (found in the Impreza). Toyota has been so particular about this concept that even the blue-red metallic paint was specially developed by the company.
“Sports cars have to be red, but we wanted a new red,” chief engineer Tetsuya Tada said. “So we came up with shoujyouhi red, the traditional red color of a Japanese monkey’s backside”.
Don’t run to your Subaru or Toyota dealer yet, the sports car will go into production in late 2011. Toyota will do most of the engineering work, Subaru will give its engine and the car will be put together at a Subaru plant.
Toyota is determined to keep the price of the car down in the USD $20,000 range ($22,000 direct conversion, although we believe it will be in the high 20s low 30s when it comes to Australia).
The car is designed from the ground up and does not share platform with any other current car. Engine will be at the front and power will go to the rear-wheels. If it uses the same engine as the current Impreza, it will have around 110kW and 200Nm or torque.
At the recent Subaru Liberty/Outback launch CarAdvice had the opportunity to ask the head of Subaru’s performance brand STI whether or not it will drop the 2.5-litre turbocharged engine in this car and the response was positive.
We can only imagine what an tuned by STI version of this car could do! Would you buy the Toyota version or the Subaru version of this car?
FT-86 Concept dimensions:
Length 4,160 mm
Width 1,760 mm
Height 1,260 mm
Wheelbase 2,570 mm
Seating 4
Print it: 
Looks hot I reckon
At high 20’s these would fly off the shelves (I’d be in line). As for Toyota or Subaru, that all depends on how badly Subaru ruin the styling. The Toyo version looks great IMHO.
Can’t agree with you more on that one. I would rather own a Subie than a toyota, but subaru’s styling department needs a big change and soon.
Only thing i want to know is does that rear window open with the boot(hatch style) and the seats fold or is that tiny boot lid it?
they’re calling it a coupe… (?) if the hatch opened, itd technically be a ‘hatchback’…
Fastback actually
I had a 180SX a while back which was great for getting the mountain bike in the back. Miss that now, which is the reason for the question.
It’ll retail for 35K AUD.
Knowing Toyota Australia’s pricing schemes.
If The Toyota version gets a 110kW 200nM engine, I’d say 120kW after they tune it.
At 1100~1200kg thats not bad at all.
But I think, as many have claimed they expect it to be a “tuner” friendly, so a TRD turbo bolt-on at 10K extra would be a BLESSING! Heck I’d pay 15K~20K extra for the turbo version.
The 2.5 liter STi version, if it makes it, is a bit disappointing… they need the 2.0 STi Turbo engine they have in Japan!!
I’d be surprised if this is under $40,000 or barely in the high 30s. If it is high 20s or even low 30s, that would be an awesome buy.
US$20,000 = AUS$22,000 = AUS$29,000 to AUS$33,000 !!!! Oh don’t you just love how we get shafted by new car prices!
Could you imagine if they released a sporty rear wheel drive like this on the market for under $25,000? No single bloke would even look at a FWD hatch or sedan for $5,000 less. And every revhead would be looking at how to make the thing go faster and corner better.
Unfortunatly while the car industry chaps agree that the Australian public like to be screwed by them, no one will break ranks and undercut the other chaps in such an unsporting way.
My guess on price, US$20,000 = AUS$22,000 will equal about AUS$35,000. We are really buggered buy the exchange rate eh?
Well, the base model Impreza is 17k USD, and 23k AUD before various on road costs
So 20k USD shouldn’t be much more than 30k AUD. If it was, it wont stay it for long, like how the base model impreza dropped by $1500 after just a year of release.
If you were in business would you compete on price lol? As any good businessman will tell you, price is the last thing you compete on.
Manufacturers don’t go looking for a price war because that just ends up hurting their bottom line.
At $30K there wouldn’t be a RWD competitor in the Aussie marketplace. Good move Toyota.
Too early in the day for comments from Mr Czechoslovakia or Pauline Hanson…?
Finally!!! Something desirable from Toyota! Lets hope the production version doesn’t change too much. But knowing Toyota they’ll beige it up so as not to offend the ‘bowling hat brigade’. ;)
As for Toyata or Subaru, i’ll wait to see what Suby’s version looks like. But this looks sweet.
Cool,a little Velociraptor.
Pretty. Not quite 10 out of 10.
For Toyota this is a 20 out of 10!
hahahahahaha totally agree
Im worried that the toyota version will match the great styling with adequate performance ,and subaru will ruin the looks and drop in better performance. If Nissan and Subaru had combined for this it might have been near perfect!
Are you kidding?!! Nissans are uglier than Toyotas and Subarus. The only thing nissan can do are good V6 engines.
Yes Nissan let Renault hit it with the ugly stick.
10/10 for looks I reckon, and it will be interesting to see the production model transition.
P.S: Was that monkey’s bottom comment really necessary?
I reckon, made me chuckle, but also made me think that I’d take it in any colour except monkey butt red thanks.
LOL!! Why would you intentionally admit you painted your car to match a monkey’s backside???
Exchange rates do not work when looking at car prices. Import duties and tarriffs, shipping costs etc will make it $39,990 + stealer charges etc.
That won’t stop me buying one, but by all means direct translation of foreign exchange to set the price of the car- mid 20’s to mid 30 grand…
For an exercise I checked Hyundai USA’s website for the price of a Hyundai Elantra that sells for AU$20,000 here. The same car cost about US$14,000. (chose hyundai because I know their long term pricing)
Apply this 30% differance to the pricing of the Toyota and it should be available for around AU$28,500. But as you say, it will probably wear a price tag of $40,000, give or take $5 + “lets see how much more money we can squeeze out of you” charges.
Toyota have to ship to the USA also, Japan drives on the same side of the road as us so it is not an excuse that it cost more to R&D a righthand drive model, nor is there only a small right hand drive market for a Japanese car made in Japan.
I agree, anyone who thinks Toyota will sell this for <$30K in Australia are dreaming!
Ultimately this is a low volume, high margin car (in comparison to your everyday Corollas) and Toyota will price it accordingly.
Two years before it goes into Production? So given how late we tend to get things here does that mean late 2012 before they go on sale here? 2-3 years is a long time away. It is unlikely that the design of the Subaru version and Toyota version will be much different – and that is if Subaru bring it here at all. And those seats are unlikely to make a production version at the stated price.
Anyway RWD is a good idea, and maybe a selling point but given the price tag, the FWD brigade typical of this market segment are unlikely to know or even care about the difference. And Toyota are unlikely to harp on to much about the RWD aspect as it could highlight the inadequacies of their Aurion FWD 200 killer wasps.
just make it freaking now dam it!!!
can’t believe it’s gonna be that cheap. i bet there’ll be a crap load of upgrades for it too. can effing wait!
the release date here will be not long after the japanese release date from what i saw………. its a fact!
Awesome, I’ll take one :)
Toybaru is a great looking car. It’s so cool! Concept sounds very interesting, I can’t wait to have one.
I like it great idea but that back really doesn’t do it for me, I think if they got rid of the grey plastic from the bottom of the car it would look much nicer also I think it would look nice in a dark gunmetal grey allow the back lights to stand out more. Just to annoy a few people probably be REALLY reliable as well making it a good choice for a sporty car.