Toyota Sports Cars

With so many past nameplates making a comeback these days – most of them in the wrong guise, as SUVs or crossovers – it wouldn’t hurt if Toyota decided to revive the MR2, it’s much-praised mid-engine sports car from the ‘80s and ‘90s.

We recently covered a rendering, which gave us an idea of how a Toyota GR86 Convertible could look like. Now, the Hungarian virtual design studio – X-Tomi Design – is giving us another great idea. They’ve taken the Toyota GR86 and decided to make a shooting break out of it. We have to admit, the results are quite good. The Shooting brake concept is a very old one. It dates back to the 1800s and the first shooting brake cars were manufactured in Britain.

The Toyota GR86 is certainly one of the more pleasant surprises in the automotive world. In times when cars are becoming bigger, heavier, and much more complex, car enthusiasts begged for a car that’s simple, sporty, and relatively attainable. That being said, the Toyota GR86 may be available as both a Toyota and a Subaru product, but it only comes in coupe form. Although we definitely don’t mind that, some of us have wondered how a convertible version would look like.

Toyota sparked quite a buzz when it announced a joint reveal with Subaru a few days back. The online stream was supposed to happen on the Toyota Gazoo page, so we knew it would be a performance car. Fast forward to the present day and the secret is finally out.

The car under the wraps was the second-gen of the 86 sports car, which is essentially a 2022 Subaru BRZ with the Toyota badge. The GR 86 comes with a bigger four-pot engine, a rear-wheel-drive configuration, and a quicker 0-62 mph time compared to its predecessor. Does anything else really matter?

Before the new Supra arrived, Toyota’s solely purpose-built sports car was the 86 (or GT86 or FT86 or Subaru BRZ or Scion FR-S, if you wish). In the U.S., the 2020 86 makes 200 or 205 horsepower and 151 or 156 pound-feet of torque depending on which gearbox you pick, so while it’s not oozing power, the 86 has other aces up its sleeves.

For example, the 86 is agile and overall a hoot to drive but, for some, a nimble RWD car that doesn’t need to be driven fast to generate quite the thrills simply doesn’t do the trick. Take this nice chap from Australia, for example.

You know that a car is well loved among car enthusiasts when people are coming up with modern takes on the said car. Case in point: Rain Prisk latest set of renderings that look to bring a contemporary vibe to the Toyota AE86.

The new Subaru BRZ and Toyota 86 are on the way, but Toyota doesn’t want the 86 to have similar driving characteristics as its Subaru twin, which is why president Akio Toyoda decided to push the 86’s debut by one year.

Toyota is launching a special edition version of the GR Supra called the Jarama Race Track Edition. Named after the Spanish race track where Toyota hosted the official media drive of the GR Supra, the special edition sports coupé is limited to just 90 units, all of which are earmarked for the European market. The Toyota GR Supra Jarama Race Track Edition will be available this spring. Pricing details have not been announced.

Toyota was and still is a synonym for reliability. Some people also remember that, alongside their rather unremarkable economy cars, they also made some pretty epic sports cars. One such car was the Toyota MR-2, particularly the SW20 generation, which combines all aspects that made Japanese sports cars of the 1990s as epic as they are. Although Toyota has given us a spiritual successor to the AE86, in the form of the GT86 and has brought back the Supra name, the brand’s mid-engine sports car is still sitting on the side bench.

Among the many engines Toyota has built, two stand out. Both of them were conceived in the early 1990s and would go on to power some of the most recognizable Japanese cars ever made. We are talking about the 1JZ and 2JZ engines. Although the technology behind them is now over 30 years old, they are still some of the most popular engines used in builds. But do they differ simply in displacement, or is there more to it? Here’s what you need to know about both these Japanese straight-sixes.

Subaru and Toyota, the companies that co-developed the 86 and BRZ twins, might be working on a new high-performance car. According to a report from Japan, the two brands are jointly developing an all-wheel-drive hatchback inspired by rally-spec machines from the 1990s. Sounds exciting, doesn’t it? But what is it?

The auto and aviation worlds have, in the past, intersected in various ways. From shared technologies to special edition Mustangs to races between supercars and fighter jets, the relationship between these two spaces is real. It’s so real that an automaker like Toyota can take a page from or two from the Red Arrows and perform a ground show that highlights the Supra’s handling and agility and we’re all for it.

Toyota hasn’t been shy about rolling out special edition models of the 86 sports car, and with the second-generation 86 already on the horizon, another limited-run 86 has been released for the Japanese market. This particular special edition 86 hits close to home for some, in part because it’s a modern-day homage to the AE86 Black Limited that Toyota unveiled back in 1986. This one is also called the Black Limited, and just like its predecessor, it comes with a fair amount of exclusive upgrades, including a new set of polished gold wheels. Only 86 units of the Toyota 86 Black Limited are available, and all 86 allocations are exclusive to the Japanese market, or at least most of them are.

The iconic Toyota Celica could return after almost two decades to join the Supra and the 86 in the company’s sports car lineup. Toyota has recently trademarked the Celica name in the U.S., hinting that the affordable coupe discontinued in 2006 is ready to make a comeback.

We’re all familiar with Toyota’s TRD (Toyota Racing Development). Other than looking to squeeze the best performance out of its cars for off-road or track use, the Japanese carmaker is also running TRI.

TRI stands for Toyota Research Institute, a division founded in 2016 which allows the Japanese brand to channel its efforts on making cars a safer place. Within TRI, Toyota is developing the Guardian, an automated safety system that learns how to spot a dangerous situation and react in due time. Right now, this advanced form of AI is learning how to drift a Supra.