New Toyota 86 Delayed for a Year
The upcoming Toyota 86 will be delayed, says Japanese scoop site Best Car Web, so as to avoid competing with the Subaru BRZ with which it was developed.
The all-new 2022 BRZ, which will be entering its second generation, is expected to hit showrooms sometime in early fall 2021. The new Toyota 86, which has long shared a platform and engine with the BRZ, was expected to get its next-gen launch at around the same time.
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It’s not that Toyota doesn’t want a simultaneous release, but rather that it needs the time to further develop the sports car to ensure it isn’t just a BRZ with a different badge. Supposedly, the directive comes from the president of Toyota himself, Akio Toyoda, who wants the 86 to have its own unique character, particularly with regards to the handling.
As a result, the new 86 isn’t expected to launch until March 2022. It will have the same 2.4-liter flat-four engine under the hood as the BRZ, making 228 horsepower and 184 lb-ft of torque, which is already a nice improvement over the outgoing model. But Best Car Web claims it will have different engine tuning and gearing to make it feel like it accelerates faster than the BRZ.
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Ever since the Toyota 86 and Subaru BRZ have shared development, the two cars have affectionately been known as the Toyotabaru. In the past, Toyota benefited more from the arrangement, as despite Subaru doing most of the engineering work, the 86 enjoyed better sales, in part because of the mythos behind the nameplate.
This last-minute desire by Toyota to differentiate its car from its Subaru counterpart is a little confusing, as the delay may merely ensure that shoppers and journalists focus only on the BRZ while its twin is still in the shop. Additionally, it’s unclear whether Toyota will continue selling old-gen 86 models in the intervening period.
That said, Toyota has done well to reestablish itself as a more performance-oriented brand in the last few years, so maybe we should just shut up and see what happens.
Kurt Verlin was born in France and lives in the United States. Throughout his life he was always told French was the language of romance, but it was English he fell in love with. He likes cats, music, cars, 30 Rock, Formula 1, and pretending to be a race car driver in simulators; but most of all, he just likes to write about it all. See more articles by Kurt.