Toyota 86 family to grow

The mid-2012 launch of the Toyota 86 and Subaru BRZ sent shockwaves around the motoring world.

The rear-wheel drive twins, especially the Toyota, basically put reasonably priced Japanese sports cars back on the map and 86 supplies have struggled to meet demand.

Not surprisingly, Toyota is eager to expand that family, and a quick look at a couple of recent motor show debuts reveals the direction in which the ‘86’ family grow in the near future.

When Toyota unveiled the FT86 Open concept at the 2013 Geneva motor show, it did what everyone expected – create an open-top convertible with a retractable roof.

And then Subaru used this year’s Tokyo show to reveal its BRZ-based wagon, the Cross Sports Design Concept, it showed the versatility the Toyota-Subaru collaboration possessed.

Toyota’s 86 chief engineer Tetsuya Tada has said that his team developed the standard model with a convertible variant firmly in mind, while a Subaru executive has commented that the Cross Sport concept is a natural progression from the BRZ.

Now, the next piece of the puzzle is slowly falling into place – an 86-based four-door sedan.

A source close to Toyota has divulged that Subaru’s Cross Sport provides telling hints of what the Toyota four-door will look like. “It’d be easy to bring the B-pillar forward, add a rear door and slant the rear roof section to create a viable sedan look,” said our source.

Bearing a development code of 734A, we’re told the 86 sedan measures 4750mm long, 1780mm wide, 1400mm high and rides on a 2750mm wheelbase.

Making the car about the same size as Subaru’s current Liberty, the four-door will be 510mm longer and 100mm taller than the 86 overall, and its wheelbase 180mm longer.

Given the 86 sedan’s extra size and weight, the stock 86 coupe’s 147kW 2.0-litre boxer engine would need beefing up. Our source tells us that in place of the naturally aspirated 2.0-litre four-cylinder would be a combination that was initially said to be impossible for the 86.

Yes folks, a turbo. But not just any turbo. Toyota will insist on a 2.0-litre turbo-boxer being bolted to a revised version of its tried and proven hybrid system, pumping out around 224kW.

In addition to a hybridised turbo powerplant, Toyota’s R&D department is currently testing in-wheel motors. Fitted at the front, they would make the four-door an all-wheel drive sedan.

However, rather than a full-time AWD set-up, the idea would be to employ this in-wheel motor system at the front-end to act like Honda’s SH-AWD system. In other words, the system would only engage when rear-end traction is broken to quickly restore stability.

Of course, cost remains an important point for the R&D team. What will the market pay for expensive in-wheel motors and a hybrid-turbo powertrain -- perhaps $40,000 for the standard 2.0-litre turbo and upwards of $50,000 for the hybrid turbo AWD?

Our source suggests Toyota will test the waters first, by introducing a 2.0-litre turbo sedan by late 2016. Depending on its success, it could follow this up with an AWD hybrid powertrain – in either the same car or a Lexus model.

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