Me? With four doors? No way . . .
A report from Motor Trend that indicates that Toyota is working on a four-door version of the GT 86 sports car (known as the Subaru BRZ and Scion FR-S here in the U.S.) is making the internet rounds. Even though MT's story includes a tidbit about Toyota having assigned this phantom four-door an official-sounding development code, we're not convinced such a car will ever see the light of day, and here's why:
First, the rest of MT's report: Essentially, the GT 86 sedan would measure about 187 inches long, 70 inches wide, 55 inches tall, and stretch roughly 108 inches between its axles. Hypothetically, the car also would be rear-drive, with a turbocharged hybridized powertrain—with the potential to gain front hub electric motors later on for a fancy all-wheel-drive setup. Oh, and it'd be ready by 2016.
Let's break this down, step by step. At the platform level, Toyota already has a small, rear-drive sedan—it's called the Lexus IS, a car that, dimensionally, falls right on top of the four-door GT 86. Previous-generation iterations of the IS were sold as Toyotas elsewhere in the world, under the name "Altezza."
Moving on to the powertrain . . . let's just say it sounds farfetched. We've been told time and time again that the turbocharged version of the BRZ/FR-S/GT 86′s Subaru-derived 2.0-liter boxer four would be too costly to maintain the models' value proposition. Subaru has told us such a powerplant is possible in the future, but sources at Toyota indicated that a turbo will never reach the FR-S—mostly because a $30,000-plus Scion is a hard sell, especially when an IS250 starts in the mid-$30K range. So unless both brands become less weary about cost, it seems unlikely that a turbocharged version of the Subaru's 2.0-liter would power a four-door GT 86. Toyota is working on higher-output versions of the engine, but we've been told that, internally, turbocharging is losing out to increased displacement.
- Road Test: 2013 Subaru BRZ Limited vs. Route Napoléon
- Instrumented Test: 2013 Subaru BRZ Automatic
- Instrumented Test: 2014 Lexus IS250 F Sport AWD
Which brings us to the hybrid portion of MT's report; why hybridize a four-door GT 86? We'd reckon that even though a stretched BRZ/FR-S might be the same size as a Lexus IS, it potentially could be lighter. The BRZ and FR-S each weigh in at around 2700 pounds—roughly half a ton less than the IS. But this potential benefit would be erased by the addition of a turbo, two extra doors, additional structure, a battery, and an electric motor.
Our guess is that while Toyota might have assigned the four-door GT 86 a development code, that doesn't necessarily mean the car's going to happen. Auto companies have been known to assign such codes to feasibility studies, ideas, and the like. So don't hold your breath for this GT 86, even if we'd very much like to be proven wrong.
from Car and Driver Blog http://blog.caranddriver.com
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