Toyota FT-86: The Glitz +video

The Toyota FT-86 in the studio. But when will it finally hit the road?

It really has been dragging on for far too long. The Toyota FT-86, that is.

October 2009 was when we first ran a story about the Toyota FT-86. It was going to be Toyota’s affordable sports car. It was going to bring fun back to Toyota after too many years of hybrid blandness. And it was going to do it for around £17.5k.

Which all sounded brilliant. And the FT-86 looked good in a rather Toyota corporate meets generic sports car kind of way. But then it all went off the boil. So much so that when we saw the FT-86 at Goodwood in the summer there wasn’t a single other person stopping to have a shufty.

But then Toyota decided it was time for the second coming of the FT-86, even though it never actually managed to get here in the first place. Not only that, they had the temerity to tease a second version of the original concept that they’d also teased and which went nowhere.

Still, we got the Toyota FT-86 MK II at Geneva this year. It was a bit of a ‘Look but don’t touch’ kind of reveal, with blacked-out windows and closed doors. It looked more production-ready than before, but I don’t know if we care that much anymore.

The Toyota FT-86 certainly won’t be an affordable sports car any more; our guess is the wrong side of £25k. It’s not as good looking as it was the first time round, although it’s far from awful.

Toyota obviously want to keep interest buzzing along, so they’ve taken a pile of posh photos in the studio. And the FT-86 looks pretty decent. But there’s not a single interior shot or even a door open shot.

Which makes us think the FT-86 is still a long way off. There’s even a video of the FT-86 being photographed. Which shows more of the photographer than the inside of the FT-86.

I know. You’re overcome with excitement.

By Cars UK