This new 86 however, is just the beginning of Toyota's sports car renaissance. Soon, there will be an entry-level sports car, and of course, a Big Dog range-topper. You know the name.
"With my next sportscar," explains Tada-san, "I want to make a big... ‘wow'." His arms gesticulate large vortex circles. "Nobody expected us to build something like the GT 86. I want to give the world a shock."Does that mean we are - whisper it - getting a new Supra?
He laughs. Quite loudly. "Of course, anything is possible." Sasaki-san also chirrups in. "With the 86, we didn't want to use driver aids - that's the thinking. But new Supra means big power, so we need something for that. It'll be a different avenue of sports car from the GT 86."
Tantalisingly, neither of them would formulate anything concrete, so it remains as thus: the GT 86 is the hot new thing on the block, and a new Supra is "just one avenue of sports car Toyota could take. There are others too."One thing is for sure however: if Tada-san has his way, the new sports car definitely won't be a hybrid.
"Our LMP1 programme gave us a good insight into hybrid performance, but for me, I think current hybrid technology is not good for road sports cars. I don't really want that." I inform him about the cosmically-quick Porsche 918 Spyder - built by a company both he and Sasaki greatly admire from an engineering perspective - and he laughs again. "That's a very good hybrid drivetrain, but it's for the man who has an unlimited amount of money. I don't like that. I want to build a car that everybody can afford, a car for the ordinary people, not something that requires too much money."A champion of the everyday petrolhead, no?
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