The sports car that Toyota will offer in Europe -- the rear-wheel-drive GT 86 -- has higher specs. This means that it has a starting price that’s about 10,000 euros higher in Europe than in its domestic market. The rear-wheel-drive GT 86 that starts selling on April 6 is priced from 1.99 million yen ($26,140 or 19,900 euros) in Japan. Meanwhile, the starting price in Europe can be as high as approximately 30,000 euros when it touches down on showrooms in the early part of summer, a Toyota Europe spokesman has confirmed. He added that a low-spec version will be offered in Japan as an entry point.
The spokesman told Automotive News Europe that Toyota will launch a high-grade model with a set of 17-inch wheels and a high range of equipment in Europe where it will be sold as the GT 86. Toyota expects sales in Europe to reach 15,000 a year but only 1,000 a month is expected to be sold in Japan. Toyota wants to appeal to a younger generation of customers and to accomplish that, President Akio Toyoda has decided to take up sports car making again. The 86 name is inspired from the iconic AE86 Corolla Levin sports car from the 1980s.
It also has some of that car's stripped-back appeal. After the 86 was introduced last December, Chief Engineer Tetsuya Tada said that many of the current cars are controlled by computer chips and this “leads to a sense of the car driving you, instead of you driving the car.” He explained that they wanted to return to basics and so they chose to use few computer controls. Powering the car is a 200hp, naturally aspirated, horizontally opposed four-cylinder engine that’s co-developed with Subaru-maker Fuji Heavy Industries, which will offer the car as the BRZ. It would be known in the U.S. as a Scion FR-S and it is set to arrive in showrooms "in spring", according further to the dedicated consumer website of this car. Pricing details will be announced later.
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