Toyota FT-86 coupe - full details
Toyota will next year fulfil its promise to the world’s car lovers by recreating a range of affordable, sporty Toyotas that bring fun back to driving with its new Toyota FT-86.
In an as-yet unspecified Japanese factory in early 2012, the great grandson of Toyota’s revered founder, Akio Toyoda, will put a low-slung, rear-drive, European-developed 2+2 coupé, the FT-86, into production – in large enough volume to satisfy demand from Toyota’s many markets around the world, including Japan, the US and Europe.
The car will be available with many performance-oriented options, and could be involved in one-make racing, at least in its home country. Starting price in the UK should be close to £25,000 by the time first production cars reach our shores in the second half of next year, and full-house versions could reach the late £20,000s.
Soon after Toyota makes its move, Subaru will unveil a different-looking but mechanically similar coupé, called 086a; the two models are part of a co-operative deal that began with Toyota being allowed to use surplus Subaru manufacturing capacity in the US, and has blossomed into an agreement to create “several cars” together.
The arrangement allows hard-pressed Subaru to benefit from its giant partner’s market expertise and vast economies of scale, while Toyota gets the use of Subaru’s low and compact flat-four engine and its better track record at making cars keen drivers understand and desire.
The new coupés are aimed directly at VW’s successful Scirocco – but have several built-in advantages. Toyota insiders say that as well as having rear-wheel drive, which better suits handling adjustability than the Scirocco’s Golf-derived front-wheel drive, their new FT has a considerably lower centre of gravity (even lower than a Porsche Boxster’s) and is around 200kg lighter.
With such talk, Toyoda and his henchmen are sparing no effort to break through the current view of Toyota products as worthy but dull, while giving the car a general air of day-to-day practicality.
There has been much talk of creating the aura of the ultra-rare 1960s Toyota 2000GT, but a much more relevant comparison is with the rear-drive Corolla AE86 coupé of the mid-1980s, whose rear-drive compactness, high power-to-weight ratio and great controllability soon made it a favourite with good drivers.
In all likelihood the car will come to our market in two trim versions, with the entry model priced a little under £25,000. They will share the same power output and manual gearbox; price differences will be made up by interior equipment, body decor and wheel/tyre specifications.
Market experts say the demand for cars in this sector is around 60,000 cars across Europe, and if successful the pair could account for 9000 units or so. Of these, 3000 to 4000 could be expected to come to the UK, which means that next year FTs could be taking to our roads at around 80 a week.
Toyota FT-86 - under the skin
The latest Toyota FT-86 concept at last month’s Geneva show is “95 per cent” the production car, according to insiders, accurate in its surfacing, although its 20-inch wheels won’t make production.
The FT has a monocoque structure, carefully engineered with high-strength steels to keep weight low. It is similar in length to an Auris at 4235mm and sits on a generous wheelbase of 2570mm, but it’s only 1270mm high – one good reason for its low centre of gravity.
Toyota is coy about the FT’s kerb weight, but if it truly undercuts the Scirocco by 200kg, it must weigh little more than 1100kg ready to roll – a very impressive figure that rivals will want to investigate.
The engine is basically a 2.0-litre, 16-valve flat four from the Subaru stable but with special modifications to suit this new application. Driving through a six-speed manual gearbox (or a six-speed paddle-shift auto in some markets), the unusual powertrain concentrates its masses considerably lower than an ordinary in-line layout would do, and further back in the car. A standard limited-slip differential further aids traction.
Toyota engineers say the engine produces around 200bhp, but final power, torque and fuel figures are still being derived because this Subaru-sourced engine uses a Toyota direct fuel injection system with Toyota’s own engine management.
What’s more, Toyota’s engine partner, Yamaha, has been involved in its cylinder head design. Although the car will have a sporty character, Toyota chief Akio Toyoda has decreed that this should be a docile, easy-driving engine that should live up to his company’s jealously guarded reputation for fuel efficiency and low CO2 outputs.
The base model should have 0-60mph acceleration of around seven seconds and a top speed of 140mph, but there has been talk that Toyota might offer lower final drive ratios for sporty applications, and the rumour mill is already abuzz with tales of ‘kitted’ cars with more like 270bhp on tap. Maybe even turbocharged, bewinged versions for big-time racing. Such things would certainly feed the enthusiasms of Toyoda, surely the first Japanese car company chief in history to have raced at the Nürburgring.
The original concept car’s interior, complete with zip-in trim sections, is unlikely to be repeated in production, but designers say the sense of their design – a pared-down treatment that concentrates on the driving essentials for driving and dispenses with distractions – is sure to stay.
On a practical theme, there will be occasional seats in the rear, capable of carrying children or adults over short distances. Special emphasis is being placed on the driver’s seat – both its shape and its relationship with the instruments and controls. Toyoda believes great driving starts with a comfortable seating position.
On paper, the suspension of the FT-86 is nothing special: MacPherson struts up front and a coil-sprung multi-link system at the rear, with anti-roll bars at both ends. The brakes are conventional four-wheel discs, the standard wheels are understood to be 18-inch and the power steering is all-electric.
However, Toyota bosses have decreed that suspension parts, especially dampers, should be more sophisticated, more expensive components than are usually used in cars at this volume and price, and the company’s European ride and handling team is well into an exhaustive six-month suspension tuning programme; its mission is to devise a set-up to suit world markets. The company has come around to believing that if such an approach can work for BMW, it can work for Toyota, too.
Much detailed work has already been done on spring/damper tuning, and although the car has yet to be signed off, prototypes have been driven by Toyoda, and the car is close to hitting its targets.
In particular, the car will adopt a European philosophy for its chassis stability system, which includes a Sport setting to allow the driver to slide the car within limits, without intervention.
Development should be done just beyond mid-year, around six months before manufacturing preparations begin.
What's the Toyota FT-86 like to drive?
“We’re putting a tremendous amount of effort into finessing this car,” Duncan McMath, a senior Toyota engineer of 14 years’ standing, who has driven Toyota FT-86 prototypes extensively during their development in Europe and spends his weekends building 700bhp racing cars, told me.
“We know this car has to deliver, if we are ever going to change people’s opinions about how Toyotas drive. The mission is to rekindle the spirit of the old rear-drive Corolla people remember so fondly, without removing the practicality today’s owners need, which will encourage them to use the car every day. There’s still work to do, but I believe we’ve achieved a lot.
“We’ve develop the steering to give a near-instant response. And because of this, and the excellent weight distribution, the car is very, very adjustable when cornering.
"The effort builds up nicely through the wheel as you go harder. We think we’ve got the initial cornering roll just right, so the car feels very responsive on turn-in, and it tucks in nicely when you lift off, too.
“The other thing is the body control. We’ve been very careful with the damping, so the car stays flat and just soaks up the bumps. There’s very little bounce, even on poor surfaces, which should help in the UK. With this suspension, the great driving position, the lightness and the throb of that flat four, I think people might reckon we’ve built something pretty good.”
Even the next Z is purportedly to be a hybrid.
