2017 Toyota 86 Special Edition A Doubleclutch.ca Review with T.H.
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TechTranscript
00:00Pretend that you didn't know anything about this car, or what its predecessor looked like
00:08or was called.
00:09What do you think about the way it looks?
00:12If you asked me, I'd say that that bottom lip is just a little bit too thick, and that
00:16rear wing – I'm doing quotes in the air, by the way – looks like a scale model of
00:20a real rear wing added on at the last minute.
00:24But the rest seems very well proportioned, and overall, it has a very exciting shape.
00:29It looks classically rear-wheel drive, like something that would come out of Japan, intended
00:33for a midnight toge run.
00:36Clearly then, it's a Toyota.
00:38So we have to ask the question, what ever were they doing with a brand called Scion?
00:42Either way, I've got what is essentially a rebadged Scion FR-S, and as if to celebrate,
00:48Toyota has produced this, the 86 Special Edition.
00:53Yes, yes, the Toyota 86 finally has a proper name.
01:01I say 86, by the way, because Hachiroku, which is the original Corolla AE86, translates to
01:0786, not 86.
01:09So I'm going to call it 86 for the duration of this review.
01:12Yes, now Scion, the FR-S, as we all know and love, was a bit of a marketing exercise in
01:17North America.
01:19It was meant to attract younger buyers, more hip buyers to the Toyota brand, but I think
01:29Toyota eventually realized that all they needed to do to attract hip and young buyers to the
01:35Toyota brand was to just make a rear-wheel drive sports car that was really fun to drive.
01:39If you build it, they will come.
01:41So here we are.
01:42They've clued in, and now we have the Toyota 86, which is what it should have been called
01:46all along.
01:47It's been called the GT86 in Europe right since the inception of the new chassis.
01:51So now we have a proper name.
01:53I'm happy.
01:54I'm happy.
01:55It's got 86 badges everywhere.
01:56Looks really cool.
01:57It's got a better sounding name.
01:59It's a Toyota, like it should have been.
02:01Now I am in the 86 Special Edition.
02:04This is the 860 Special Edition right down here.
02:07This is for $32,000 in Canada.
02:10Over $29,000, you get the Special Edition, which comes with a really great paint job,
02:15which I swear I can't tell what color it is because it changes.
02:19Either it's red or it's orange.
02:20If you follow me on Instagram, by the way, reviewswithth, at reviewswithth on Instagram,
02:28follow me there, and you'll see that I posted two pictures of it.
02:30One because it was like, oh, the really great red of the new Toyota 86.
02:33And then it was, oh, I think it's actually orange.
02:35Sorry about my last post.
02:37So yeah.
02:38P.S.
02:39On the inside, we get all of the amenities of what is essentially the Subaru BRZ SportTech
02:43trim, which is the middle of the trim level in the BRZ world.
02:47So I have the half leather, half Alcantara seats.
02:49I've got the dual zone climate that's automatic with a little cool looking toggle switch.
02:53I've got a push button start.
02:55I have heated seats.
02:58Oh, and I also have the TFT screen, which is what I think it's called, in the center
03:02of my gauge cluster here, which tells me lots of cool stuff of what's going on my car and
03:06gives me several rather gimmicky features, which I will get into in a minute.
03:11First of all, how does the car drive?
03:13Well, pretty much exactly like every other FT86 car out there.
03:19Yeah.
03:20It isn't really that much different.
03:21I think there's five more horsepower for the 2017 86 year.
03:25And we have a little bit more torque and a new steering wheel, which I don't like.
03:31So yeah, this is the new steering wheel.
03:34I suppose it looks kind of cool, but it's thinner.
03:37It's thinner around than the original one.
03:40And it's got buttons on it now.
03:41I don't like the fact that it has buttons.
03:43One of the really cool things about the original FRS or BRZ was that, oh, well, we didn't put
03:51buttons on the steering wheel because it's a driver's car.
03:54Yeah.
03:55So now there's buttons on the steering wheel and the steering wheel is a little bit too
03:57small to be honest.
03:58I like the feel of the other steering wheel from the previous generation.
04:03So how is the car to drive in general?
04:06Well, it drives exactly like all the other ones do.
04:08Very, very, very well.
04:10From a sporty standpoint, it's still a fantastic car.
04:13You feel so low to the ground.
04:15There's an incredibly low center of gravity.
04:17And that's one thing that you really, really can feel.
04:21If you get in a Miata and then get into this right after, you will notice the difference.
04:25The Miata, even though it is very similar in philosophy, it feels very different.
04:31It feels more wallowy in the corners, much more body roll.
04:36The suspension is a little bit softer.
04:37I'll give you that.
04:38But this car feels so flat in the corners.
04:41Any of these do.
04:42I love that.
04:43I love that.
04:44You feel it.
04:45It's hard to describe.
04:46Right in like the center of your back.
04:48Yeah.
04:49So there's that too.
04:52The suspension is still stiff.
04:53It's a little bit softer than it used to be.
04:56The ride is a little bit better than the first generation FR-S, but it's still pretty stiff
05:01if I'm honest.
05:02So for daily driving, you do get a little bit of like vertical chop to the ride.
05:08And in terms of like actually just driving the car around, I'm not a huge fan of the
05:14way this car just kind of commutes, right?
05:16I've had many of these on the track and on an autocross course, and they are an absolute
05:22blast.
05:23Wonderful balance of the chassis, incredibly neutral through the corners.
05:27You can just make the car rotate by adding more steering lock.
05:30There's a limited slip differential.
05:32You can power oversteer.
05:33It does all of the lovely stuff that we want.
05:35The pedals are spaced very well for heel and toes, which is what I'm doing right now.
05:39Down into second, into the corner, off we go.
05:43Power wise, it's just about like every other one.
05:48Yep.
05:50Not very quick, but that's not really what this car is about.
05:53That has been said a million times over, so I'm going to stop talking about that right
05:56now.
05:58So this little screen here that I was talking about a few minutes ago, one of the things
06:03that I can go through and select is a kind of like a sport menu that shows me things
06:09like a G readout, which is not helpful.
06:13It gives you your maximum G in the corner.
06:15I suppose that's very cool.
06:16So you can see what kind of G you are pulling on a skid pad or something.
06:19But I mean, that changes with temperatures and what tires you're running, so who cares
06:24about that?
06:25I have a timer, which is great, except you have to start and stop it using the buttons
06:31on the steering wheel, which renders it pointless for setting actual lap times because there's
06:35no way you're going to click that consistently over the finish line unless there's some GPS
06:39built into this car that automatically picks up on tracks that I don't know about.
06:42If I do, I'm sorry, Toyota.
06:44What else do we have?
06:45We have a, ah, yes, a torque and power graph.
06:49Okay, so this is where things get interesting.
06:52For those of you that know anything about this particular flat four, this boxer engine,
06:55it has massive torque dip at right about, I can show you, 3,000 RPM is where it starts
07:03to fall off.
07:04So you feel kind of a nice punch between one and three.
07:08The car feels torquey and then anything past that and it dips.
07:14You feel the torque kind of disappear.
07:16It still continues to build speed.
07:18It's not like you stop moving, but you do feel a significant dip and then it builds
07:23all of a sudden again, right around 5,000, boom, there.
07:26It goes right up back into the torque band and things are okay.
07:30Yeah, so if you are going to drive the car aggressively on the track, you do need to
07:36keep it pretty much above 5,000 RPM.
07:39That's the sweet spot.
07:40Anything below that and you will notice a significant amount of torque dip and what
07:44frustrates me is that from my knowledge anyway, I'm pretty sure there's some like aftermarket
07:48tunes you can get that will get rid of that torque dip.
07:50So why that it's not done from the factory, I have no idea, but here we are.
07:54So the graph in the gauge cluster, very cool to look at.
07:59Not entirely useful.
08:00It doesn't actually come on the base 86.
08:02It comes on this special edition or the Subaru Sport Tech.
08:06Infotainment, eh, moving on.
08:09The sound, okay.
08:12So about the sound, it sounds pretty much exactly like any of the other 86s, but I don't
08:19like it.
08:21That's just my opinion.
08:22I'm not a huge fan of the sound of this engine.
08:25There's an induction hose that pumps noise into the cabin.
08:28I think that I would delete that immediately.
08:31That's a mod that some guys do.
08:32I've seen on the forums.
08:33They delete that induction noise and they just put a louder exhaust because the exhaust
08:36note in the car is actually quite good, but I don't like the induction noise.
08:39I would remove that hose right away.
08:42Now this is a very mechanical car.
08:45There's a lot of race car noises is what I like to call them coming from pretty much
08:49everywhere.
08:50It's not a very refined feeling car.
08:54It still feels kind of a hollow.
08:57So like when you're just at a stop and you can hear the clutch engaging and disengaging,
09:02you can hear the clunk of the gears going in.
09:05Things kind of feel like it makes you go, wait, is it supposed to do that?
09:08I hope it's supposed to do that.
09:10Yeah.
09:11I've never been in one of these cars that doesn't do that.
09:13And this one is absolutely no different.
09:17Yeah.
09:21Yeah.
09:24These are still very, very fun cars.
09:28If you're looking for pretty much what else are you going to get?
09:33What else is there out there for this price?
09:36Answer that question.
09:37The Miata is actually like a new Miata is actually quite a lot more money than this
09:41car is.
09:42I think it's thousands more for 30 for just around 30 I mean an 86 or a BRZ is pretty
09:50much your go to.
09:51So yes, I am happy to say that the Toyota 86 is in North America in full form exactly
09:56the way that it should have been right from the beginning.
09:59I don't want you to think for a second that because I've complained about a few parts
10:02of this car that I don't like it overall.
10:04Quite the contrary.
10:05I love it.
10:07It represents what's still largely missing from today's market.
10:10Very well engineered, low cost driving machines.
10:13These cars are capable of producing incredible lap times in essentially stock form when put
10:18in the right hands.
10:19And I'm beyond happy that we now have an 86 here in North America.
10:23As for the special edition, well, if you want the creature comforts of the BRZ, but with
10:27the Toyota badge, then this 86 special edition is clearly the car for you.
10:36I need just a little bit of a hit.
10:51Edit that out.
10:53Edit that out.
10:55Whoa.
10:56Ow.
10:57Take two.
10:59So, your best is a 128.8.
11:02That's terrible.
11:03Thomas, you are very good on camera.