Coupés are well known money pits, selling well within the initial few years, and then as fashion progresses, starting to be desolate cash burners, finishing their short lives unloved and lower in the back of the display room.

Where once Toyota 86 manufactured a number of sporting coupés such as the Celica, Supra along with the mid-engined MR2, its donning pompous are purely pipe and slippers right now. Until recently. Through next June about £25,000 will bring you behind the wheel on this, the Toyota GT 86, sometimes known in Japan because the "Hachiroku", which means "eight, six" in Japanese. Notice it within the pictures and the GT-86 looks further from epochal. You would be pardoned for pondering what all the fuss is all about. The design and style is sports-coupé ubiquity, great nose, nevertheless offshoot tail treatment, even though the front wing bulges really are a nice touch. Additionally, it looks larger than it is, although in reality, the GT 86 is a reasonably small car at just 14ft long and weighing about a ton (1,188kg).

Beneath the skin it is additionally unexceptional; MacPherson swagger front, which has a wishbone backed. The horizontally-opposed flat-four originates from Subaru, the sophisticated port and immediate fuel injection is Toyota's. Subaru offers the six-speed manual gearbox (which you want), or perhaps a six-speed auto with paddle shifting (that you simply don't).

Nominally a two-plus-two, the cabin has backed seats, but they're useless apart from the tiniest tot. Probably the largest clue regarding how this car is going to be used comes with the press pack lay claim that you can obtain a trolley jack and four substitute wheels and tyres within the cabin and boot if you fold the rear seats - the boot is shockingly big.

The major controls are light with a meaty weight to the electrically-assisted steering and a short-throw tranny. Pull out to the wet Sodegaura circuit in Japan and it also can feel nice, there is however a line of communication operating over the steering and chassis that shows another thing. Which means you keep hold of the well-stacked gear plus the engine excitedly goes up the dimensions, carrying out its work with a developing snarl as it gets towards 7,450rpm red line.
 
As the power transport is flat, this small car flies. Change into the first corner and also you know very well what it is all about. The nose area comes round impatiently, with little body roll due to a low centre of gravity and when via a slight hesitancy the Toyota GT 86 is superbly well balanced and neutral, either drifting with all four wheels, or looking forward to you to push the tail out with a judicious prod within the right foot. With the brilliantly communicative steering, you instinctively find out what the wheels are going to do and just how much grip you have to fool around with.