Toyota 86 convertible concept set for debut
Toyota has officially unveiled the FT-86 Open concept, basically a look at the upcoming 2014 Toyota 86 convertible.
Toyota has officially unveiled the FT-86 Open concept, basically a look at the upcoming 2014 Toyota 86 convertible.
When the Toyota 86 was launch earlier this year, Al Futtaim Motors had also announced their sponsorship of the Emirates Drifting Team, a UAE-based outfit that takes part in regional drifting events. While their main driver, Ahmed Al Amri, was using a Toyota Soarer earlier, he is now switching to this Toyota 86 now, although there isn’t much left of the original car any more.
At this year’s SEMA show you will get to see three tuner-readied Scion FR-S, better known as the Toyota 86 here in the UAE. A Scion-sponsored competition has given three individual tuners the chance to go head-to-head in a FR-S design competition.
This one was a long time coming. Sure, everybody else is busy comparing the Toyota 86 to everything from the VW Scirocco to the Hyundai Genesis Coupe. But aside from the Mazda MX-5, there was only one other car that’s similar to the 86 in recent history, and it’s the Honda S2000. It ceased production only 3 years ago, so it is still possible to buy one on the used market. And whadaya know, we actually own one in our fleet. And our car also happens to be one of the lowest-mileage S2000s in the world. This was going to be interesting.
When we were driving the top-spec automatic version of the Toyota 86 recently, one of our contributors happened to be testing the base manual version at the same time. So I and George here were in the unique position to check out the differences between the two cars, considering there is a sizeable difference in price between the two.
Yes, we’ve driven this car already. But that was the basic manual version. This is the top-spec automatic version.
The Subaru BRZ, the carmaker’s first rear-wheel-drive in a long time, has just hit the dealer in Abu Dhabi. It has already been launched in Oman and Saudi Arabia recently.
The Toyota 86 is probably the most overhyped sports car in history, reaching legendary cult status long before it was even launched, theoretically outrunning everything from Porsches to F-16s in the sell-as-much-magazines-as-possible media. Everybody keeps talking about how it marks the return of the Toyota “AE86” or whatever, even though no one even heard of that piece-o-dung 1984 Corolla coupe before it starred in an overblown-but-awesome Japanese cartoon called Initial D in 1999. It’s pretty easy for Toyota to make a better car than that, especially if half the parts are from Subaru. So how good is this car?
Further to the UAE launch of the new Toyota 86 sports car, Al-Futtaim Motors, exclusive distributors of Toyota in the UAE, has announced the launch of the Toyota Emirates Drifting Team.
Toyota Motor Company has brought to the market a new range of accessories for the Toyota 86, that too in Germany of all places.