With this much hype leading up to Toyota’s FT-86 sportscar - which will finally put the brand back into the day dreams of petrolheads after a long hiatus since the death of the Celica and MR2 – it can’t afford to be anything less than brilliant.
A leaked brochure of the production car talks about two trims riding on 16in and 17in wheels, both powered by a four-cylinder boxer engine developed by Subaru, and pushing 200 horsepower. The chassis should make up for the lack of power, with rear-wheel drive and a six-speed manual ‘box. But even if that doesn’t quench our greedy thirst for an affordable RWD JDM beast, we’ll just wait a bit until Subaru dips the same car into some blue paint and hikes up the power to 300 horses.
The Subaru BRZ – it's official name now – will make its world premiere at the Los Angeles auto show packing a 2.0-litre engine, turbocharged to reach the peak. We should see 0-100kph times in the fives, easily rivaling stuff like the Nissan 370Z, Hyundai Genesis Coupé and co. If the Toyota model will cost roughly around $30,000, than expect the Subaru to shoot way past $40,000.
Blue paint, rally wing, yup, that’s a Subaru all right…
