Auto Channel

Autoblog.com reported last monday (July 30th) that Toyota is in the process of forming a special committee dedicated to creating interesting cars, mainly because Toyota has no sports cars left in their current line-up. Lexus is of course working on some good stuff, i.e. the IS-F and LF-A, but since the MR2 and Supra, Toyota has only been supplying the non-performance section of the market.

So the time has come for the resurrection of the AE86, a Corolla coupe from the 80's. Japanese car magazine Best Car (Japanese language site) has pried loose some initial specs of the AE86:

• under 4m long,
• approximately 1,7 m wide,
• measuring 1,35m from the ground up,
• target weight lies under 1000kg,
• will most likely be powered by a 1,5 liter 2NZ-FE engine.

Toyota's new partner, Fuji Heavy Industries (or Subaru to most people) will be supplying the RWD drivetrain.

Like the Scion xD, which is branded as the Toyota ist in Japan, there is a good possiblity that the AE86 might make it to the USA as a new Scion tC, or as an entirely new Scion budget performance car. Toyota is aiming for a 1.5mil Yen (or $12,300 / under 10,000Euro) price tag.