No one's going to accuse the current Toyota lineup of being exciting. Sure, it's good -- stalwarts like the Corolla, Camry, Sienna, Prius and Highlander all earn kudos from reviewers and and spots in drivers' garages across the country. These top-selling nameplates help make Toyota the market juggernaut it is today. The thing is, not very long ago, Toyota let its buyers have their cake and eat it, too. The economy and family cars that represent the automaker's bread-and-butter were once joined in showrooms by sport coupes like the Celica and performance icons like the Supra. Toyota's present leadership realizes that this ingredient, fun, is sorely lacking, and has moved to correct it by greenlighting an affordable rear-wheel-drive sport coupe -- a modern take on the formula used to great effect with the Toyota AE86 of the 1980s. This month in Tokyo, the Toyota FT-86 concept will make its public debut, and rest assured, it's ultimately showroom-bound.
No one's going to accuse the current Toyota lineup of being exciting. Sure, it's good -- stalwarts like the Corolla, Camry, Sienna, Prius and Highlander all earn kudos from reviewers and and spots in drivers' garages across the country. These top-selling nameplates help make Toyota the market juggernaut it is today. The thing is, not very long ago, Toyota let its buyers have their cake and eat it, too. The economy and family cars that represent the automaker's bread-and-butter were once joined in showrooms by sport coupes like the Celica and performance icons like the Supra. Toyota's present leadership realizes that this ingredient, fun, is sorely lacking, and has moved to correct it by greenlighting an affordable rear-wheel-drive sport coupe -- a modern take on the formula used to great effect with the Toyota AE86 of the 1980s. This month in Tokyo, the Toyota FT-86 concept will make its public debut, and rest assured, it's ultimately showroom-bound.
