The Toyota 86 is a sports car developed jointly by Japanese automobile manufacturers Toyota and Subaru. It has 2+2 seats, a 2-door coupé body style and a front-engine, rear-wheel drive layout.
The model will be sold under three different brands: Toyota (Toyota 86 in Japan and Australia and Toyota GT-86 in Europe), Subaru (Subaru BRZ) and Scion (Scion FR-S).
"86" refers to the Toyota Corolla Levin series AE86 and the Toyota Sprinter Trueno series AE86, a particular series of cars sold between 1983 and 1987 (both the Levin and Trueno were available in coupe and hatchback bodystyles).
As such, the Toyota 86 has been named as the spiritual successor of the original AE86 during the press release of the 86. The use of a boxer-style engine also refers to a historical Toyota sports car, called the Toyota Sports 800, Toyota's first sports car. Heritage of the Toyota 86 can also be traced back to the Toyota 2000GT, Toyota's second front engine, rear-drive sports car with a 2.0 liter engine.
The significance of the reference to the series AE86 was that both the Trueno and Levin of this series were the last with rear wheel drive; the following Sprinter Trueno and Corolla Levin series AE92 were released with front wheel drive thereafter. The previous Corolla Levin and Sprinter Trueno were performance enhanced trim packages of the Corolla and Sprinter for each generation of the Levin and Trueno; the current platform is unique and not related to the current Corolla or variants.
The Toyota and Scion have little distinguishing elements - the latter has cheaper pieces to reduce base price in the United States. The Subaru BRZ differs mainly in its front end, where the grille has an hexagonal shape versus an inverted trapezoid in the Toyota and Scion. In North America, the Toyota version, sold as a Scion, comes with one trim package, limiting choices to the type of transmission installed. The Subaru version comes in two trim packages, labeled as Premium and Limited. The Premium is the equivalent of the North American Scion FR-S, while the Limited adds extra features such as heated seats and exterior mirrors, dual-zone climate control, satellite navigation using XM NavTraffic subscription service, and keyless ignition.
The Toyota-designated 4U-GSE engine is a naturally aspirated four-cylinder engine that uses Subaru's horizontally opposed boxer engine as well as Toyota's D-4S injection system which uses both direct and port injection. The engine has a 12.5:1 compression ratio and a bore and stroke of 86 mm (3.4 in) that results in 200 horsepower (149 kW; 203 PS) at 7,000 rpm, for the FR-S and BRZ, and 197 horsepower (147 kW; 200 PS) for the Toyota variant,[citation needed] and 151 lb·ft (205 N·m) of torque at 6,000 rpm for all three vehicles. As part of FR-S's low weight design, the car utilizes an aluminum hood, a solid roof, and a trunk design as opposed to a hatchback.
The FR-S, 86 and BRZ will offer two 6-speed transmissions built by Aisin, a manual gearbox and modified automatic transmission from the Lexus IS-F, minus two gears. The automatic uses a traditional wet torque converter design, but its software has been engineered to mimic the response of a dual-clutch gearbox. The automatic transmission uses three different modes, Sport, Snow, and Normal.
Sources of Information
The post is made up of the author's original content, or is a compliation of material from various places.
3 comments