2023 Toyota 86

Gearing up for disappointment. We must rule the manual transmission out of contention immediately. While the six-speed box shifts crisply and smoothly, Toyota has inexplicably deleted several vital pieces of safety kit from this configuration. Buyers miss out on automatic emergency braking, auto high beams, adaptive cruise, and active lane control – all standard on automatic models. Even a top score from the IIHS can’t remedy the situation.

In an SUV, these omissions would be bad enough. In a rear-drive sports car with skinny tires fitted specifically to provoke early oversteer, it’s ludicrous. Choose the automatic model, make use of the steering wheel-mounted paddle shifters, and you can safely hang the back end out almost at will. The flat-4 engine is normally aspirated and its torque peak arrives surprisingly low down the rev range, so you can easily provoke a slide. It’s just a shame the engine’s rather coarse soundtrack doesn’t encourage swift progress – you won’t want to drop the windows as a tunnel approaches.

Easy to like, hard to love. Settle into the heavily bolstered driver’s seat, and all initially seems well. Despite the low roofline, there’s room to wear a helmet, while the chunky steering wheel serves up plenty of feedback. Acceleration is brisk rather than sensational, and reassuringly potent brakes quickly scrub off excess speed. Some drivers might find the leather seats in Premium trim less grippy than the cloth versions on base models, but only the former receive heating elements. It’s all rather monochrome up front, but everything is built to a higher standard than the three-year warranty would suggest. Buyers also get two years of scheduled servicing, while Toyota bundles in a high-speed track day and an annual National Auto Sport Association membership with every purchase.

These latter inclusions reflect the GT86’s focus on driver engagement over practicality. The rear seats are barely worthy of the name – low-backed and uncomfortable, with a deep central tunnel preventing a single occupant from stretching their legs across the other seat. They’d almost certainly try to because legroom is pitiful, while those tiny side windows add to the general claustrophobia. The absence of rear headrests allows light from the tailgate to permeate this sea-of-grey environment, though we’re astonished to find a brand-new car being marketed without any form of rear head restraint. Far better to use the back seats for ancillary storage, especially as the trunk measures a dismal 6.3 cubic feet.

What do you get for your money? Spend $29,495, and you’ll get a manual GT86 with cloth bucket seats but a leather-trimmed steering wheel, a seven-inch instrument display, and an eight-inch infotainment screen with smartphone mirroring. We’d urge you to spend a further $1,500 on the automatic transmission which additionally delivers four separate driver safety aids. The decision about whether to splash out a further $2,500 for Premium trim is tougher. Features like heated synthetic leather seats, blind-spot monitoring, and an uprated audio system are certainly welcome, but it’s hard to escape the sense that the 86 works best in its cheapest guise. For this reason, we’d avoid the $35,445 10^th Anniversary model, even with its leather accouterments.

Final thoughts. If you’re a boy racer (or a girl racer), the GT86 has much to commend it. There are few cheaper ways to get the adrenaline pumping on a quiet stretch of road, with responsive controls and enough power to have fun without risking a high-speed collision. The dashboard is basic but does what it needs to (six-speaker stereo notwithstanding), and the ownership proposition should be painless. It’s cheap to buy and run, especially with two years of scheduled maintenance and 25 mpg combined from automatic models.

So far so good, then. Unfortunately, the GT86 is severely compromised in other areas. If you need to transport more than one passenger, it’s completely unsuitable, while the tiny trunk further hobbles practicality. There’s plenty of handling prowess but the engine lacks turbo urgency or any sort of soundtrack, and the absence of basic safety features on manual models is unforgivable in 2023. The limited edition Anniversary model is too expensive for what it is, and the claustrophobic interior would benefit from either a convertible option or a large sunroof.

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