Toyota GT 86 Facts You Might Not Know About

Yeah, it may have a plasticky interior and a 2-liter engine that doesn’t sound that good with the stock exhaust, but this car was designed for fun at the track and the automaker left enough room for aftermarket improvements, starting from fitting it with wider tires to supercharging its boxer engine.

That’s what it makes the GT 86 such a special car - the fact that its a sports bred cheap coupe which can be both driven daily to work and on the local track during weekends. Oh, and have you seen it wearing the Rocket Bunny kit? It’s the sickest thing ever.

But let’s get down to business and learn some facts about the new 86:

Despite its lightweight drift-happy construction and the 86 name, the coupe’s design has been inspired by the gorgeous Toyota 2000GT. You can see that especially in the GT 86’s profile, window shapes and even the dashboard.

The GT 86 is actually manufactured by Subaru at its plant in Gunma Prefecture, along with the BRZ and the Scion FR-S model. This is another reason why we don’t have a convertible version - because Subaru said the assembly line for the three models as well as the car’s structure has to be so extensively modified that the convertible won’t be a feasible project.

Despite it looks kinda big for the car’s size, the 14.4-inch steering wheel is actually the smallest fitted to a Toyota. And if we’re talking about the dashboard area you might want to know that the GT 86 comes with a programmable rev counter warning light for when you want to drive sporty and don’t miss shift points.

Moving a bit right to the central console, you’ll see that the Start-Stop button is located on it - that’s because Toyota asked some racing drivers where they would see it better fitted. Naturally, they thought about a racecar’s kill-switch. Engineers also wanted the smallest HVAC controls possible in a compact design and that’s how the central console ended up with those aircraft-inspired switch buttons.

T-shapes all over the place. Most of the detailing panels on the GT 86 are wearing a diamond T-like motif. Front the front grille mesh to most of the interior trimming panels are wearing it and its supposed to remind somehow about the old Toyota badge... or Space Invaders.

The GT 86 wears the same skinny tires as the Prius to make it loose traction at the back quicker and make it tail happy. It’s drifting nature is also symbolized by the 86 badge - the rectangular holes in the two numbers can be seen as the car’s four wheels when going sideways.

The 86 name is also justified by the pistons’ bore and stroke which is exactly 86 mm as well as the diameter of the tail pipes.

Its racing spirit is also dictated by those 65 mm two bulges in the roof - they both improve aerodynamics and allow for the driver to wear a racing helmet.

You can also check out the vide bellow in which the guys over at Car Throttle did a funny representation of some of these facts.