Toyota's next-gen 86 takes shape

The chief engineer of the Toyota 86 has revealed the Japanese company is contemplating a new direction for the cult sports car.

Tetsuya Tada says he is actively listening to the voices of enthusiasts as his team continues development of the rumoured next-generation model.

Speaking with Australian journalists at the Geneva motor show, where the new Supra was revealed as a concept racer, Tada stopped short of confirming a follow-up version of 86 – but he gave the best indication yet.

“Obviously we are receiving many requests for different variants or versions of GT86, since it’s been five years since we launched that,” Tada-san said.

“In that sense the Supra answers fully the various requests we’ve received since GT86. We’ve covered all those requests with Supra and it provides further added value to that.

“We believe we will get further requests. When we launch GT86 in the future I think we can respond to those questions. We are thinking about the possibility of coming up with a new version of GT86, however, it’s not decided yet.”

There are many powertrain options for the next Toyota 86, which could be based on the Japanese car-maker’s own new TNGA platform or, as part of another joint-venture with Subaru, the Impreza’s new SGP underpinnings.

These include a more powerful naturally-aspirated boxer or inline four-cylinder engine, a turbocharged version or even hybrid power.

The latter would allow Toyota to channel elements of the GR HV Concept (pictured) it showed at last year’s Tokyo motor show.

Whatever the case, Tada-san wants to maintain Toyota’s upward trajectory on the sports car front.

He conceded the company suffered something of a brain drain when it came to development of the first-gen 86, which was released in 2012 and ended a decade-long drought of Toyota sports cars.

“For GT86, there was a 10 years blank where Toyota didn’t make sports cars at a production level,” Tada-san said.

“Indeed the development process of GT86 was full of difficulties because here was 10 years without a sports car. There was no development of know-how and I could not seek out any advice within the company.

“So I learned first-hand from GT86 development that once you let go of a certain technology it takes a lot of time to recover that within a company. But that was not the case with the Supra – we had years of experience thanks to the GT86 that we could rely on.”

In the meantime, Tada-san said he was aware of the growing noise from enthusiasts calling for a turbocharged version of the current 86, but confirmed it simply wasn’t possible on the current car’s platform.

“If we come up with a turbo version of GT86 and boost up the power, that would result in changing the basic configuration in order to come up with a car that I would be satisfied with,” he said.

“If we came up with a turbo version, we would have to change the weight balance between front and rear.

“One characteristic with GT86 is that it’s slightly front loaded, which makes handling fast and agile. But if you were to come up with a turbo version you would need to make it more rear loaded.”