The Toyota 86 Might Be Delayed But For a Very Good Reason

The 2022 BRZ and 86 were expected to hit the market this year. As things stand right now, that only applies for Subaru’s sports car. Best Car Web (via Motor1) reports that Toyota’s president wants to make sure his engineers and designers "make a difference in performance from the BRZ," which is why the 86 will debut a bit later.

Keep in mind that the 86 (just like the BRZ) is conceived as an affordable sports car, so further tweaking it without adding more heft to its price tag won’t be an easy task. In the same article, Motor1 also mentions that Toyota looked at ways of improving the gearbox’s shifting ability but also took a certain degree of engine tuning into consideration.

That said, there’s not a lot of leeway for Toyota to work its magic and make the 86 a totally different driving car from the BRZ. Both sports cars will get a 2.4-liter, 228-horsepower naturally-aspirated flat-four that sends all the torque (184 pound-feet) to the rear axle via a either six-speed manual or a six-speed automatic.

Speaking for the BRZ alone, the previous version was fitted with a 2.0-liter flat-four (also naturally aspirated) that cranked out 205 horsepower and 156 pound-feet of torque, enough for a 0-60 mph sprint of 6.2 seconds. While the new BRZ definitely offers improvements over the model it replaces, it’s not yet available to order, as Subaru USA only lets you configure the 2020 BRZ.

This means that those looking to get the BRZ’s Japanese twin, the Toyota 86, are going to have to show even more patience until next year. That is, of course, if Toyota is indeed delaying the launch to give it a distinct flavor that would set it apart from the BRZ.

Source: Best Car