2023 Toyota GR86 review: Sports coupe is angrier than ever – but is it better than the original 86?

The new-generation 2023 Toyota GR86 is a more focused and angry sports car than the first-gen – but does that make it better?

Foreign by now the toyota 86 doesn’t need any introduction but this is the second generation version and it’s added some to the name plate that’s right this is the gr 86 and it’s angrier than ever still rear-wheel drive still no turbo engine still the benchmark when it comes to driving dynamics for this sort of money well in this review you’ll find out i’m

Going to tell you everything you want to know and all the stuff you need to know as well and remember if you want to read it you can go to cars guide and read my full written review there and if you’re watching on youtube don’t forget to like and subscribe it helps us out a lot now let’s start off with driving because well that’s why you’re here right foreign

That should tell you some of the story about the drive experience it does sound a lot louder and it does feel a lot faster and it is faster there’s now a bigger engine that 2.4 liter four-cylinder boxer engine does have a lot more power and torque than the old 2-liter and you can really feel it when you are accelerating it’s just a lot more effortless in the

Way that it manages to get the power to the ground also there’s the choice of a six-speed manual or six-speed automatic you’ll make up your own mind about which one of those you prefer i’m in the manual right now and just like the last model the shift action isn’t as good as it could be it’s just a little bit notchy but at least the clutch is easy to manage

One thing that toyota has done with the 86 compared to the brz is they say that they’ve tuned the engine to feel more responsive than the other car and i can’t really say i’m not driving them back to back so i can’t really say with any sort of confidence whether that’s the truth but it does feel very peppy and very linear in the way that it revs toyota says

That you should be able to achieve almost all of the torque from about three and a half thousand rpm all the way up to six and a half thousand rpm and it does feel very grunty the in-gear acceleration is one of the things that toyota focused on with this car and in the last generation version there wasn’t all that much in gear acceleration to be had you did

Find yourself rowing through the gears quite a lot whereas in this version it just feels like you are able to basically leave it in gear and accelerate out of whatever situation you’re in now let’s talk about the other crucial elements of the drive experience the steering and the suspension the suspension firstly is quite firm the whole body has been stiffened

Up to be well stiffer and you can feel that as a result when you are on roads like i’m on today and it is not necessarily the most comfortable sports car out there it certainly doesn’t feel as cushy as the last generation model but i guess that goes with the intent of this car it’s designed to be a bit more angry and well toyota says that the gr badge has to

Be earned so it had to be a little bit more aggressive to drive and if you are the sort of person who will spend most of their time around town maybe make sure you test drive it over the road that you might drive on all the time because it might be just a little bit hard work if you do have a really bumpy area where you live but when it comes to the steering

Well it’s very very good it’s nice and accurate super direct and has nice feel through the wheel as well i guess my biggest criticism so far is that it’s quite noisy in here there’s a lot of road noise to contend with these are the 18 inch wheels with only 215 millimeter wide tires so they’re not necessary early the biggest contact patch on the road but still

They’re throwing a whole lot of noise in to the cabin from this course chip surface which is the sort of road that you’ll see pretty much everywhere across australia i’ve given you some information about how the manual drives and unfortunately i didn’t get a chance to drive the six-speed automatic on the road but i can tell you that it is just a little bit less

Engaging based on a track drive that i did in that model now speaking of engagement let’s take a look under the bonnet because there’s a bit to talk about it’ll be easy to think of toyota as a brand that only really sells diesels and hybrids but this toyota has a different engine to any other petrol toyota that there is and that’s because this engine actually

Comes from subaru it even says so on top of the engine cover it’s a 2.4 liter engine this time around so it’s bigger than the last one and as you can see on your screen the power outputs are bigger than the last generation model as well that means this one has at least 15 percent more power and torque than the last one but no it’s still not turbocharged and i’m

Not the only one here at the launch wishing it was toyota has never claimed that the 86 is about outright speed but this new generation model is faster than ever before we’re talking 6.3 seconds not to 100 for the manual model and 6.8 for the automatic i mean it makes sense more power more torque bigger engine faster car if you’re the sort of person who’s

Buying a car like this you probably don’t care how often you’re doing this but there are a few things about the fuel consumption of this new gr86 that you need to know it’s thirstier across the board and the fuel consumption figures are on your screen now and they show you that there is a variance between the manual and the automatic and also the trim level

That you choose essentially it is thirstier than before and it also requires 98 ron premium unleaded petrol which could be a consideration for you if you’re wondering what we’ve seen during our drive of this car on the launch drive it’s on your screen now as you can see a little bit higher than the claim but actually not that bad considering we’re ringing its

Neck oh i can still remember that day like it was yesterday there i was in that room with all those journalists at that shed next to that tracking canberra where toyota announced that the first generation 86 was gonna cost less than thirty thousand dollars for the gt manual base model it was a bombshell none of us were expecting it and in fact i was shocked

Now more than 10 years later at another shed next to another racetrack i’ve also shocked at the price of the new 86 the gr 86 that is and that’s because it’s so much more expensive now than it ever was the base model gt is 43 240 and that’s before on-road costs and if you want the gts like this one which gives you a few extra items that you’re probably going

To want it’s 45 390 an extra 2150 bucks over the gt so yeah it’s pretty expensive compared to what it used to be you can read all the details about what you get in the gt and the gts in my written detailed review that’s in the description below i guess if there’s one good piece of news from this pricing story it’s that well the manual and the automatic are now

Priced exactly the same so that either means you’re getting an automatic for free or you’re getting over charged for your manual and the manual model actually misses out on a few crucial safety items that the automatic gets so if safety matters to you well you’re gonna have to read my review if you decide that you want a manual gr 86 you aren’t getting a safer

Car as if you bought the automatic version it’s that simple let me explain that’s because the manual versions still miss out on all the now expected active safety technology like auto emergency braking lane keeping technology and even adaptive cruise control what all gr86s do get is a reversing camera seven airbags and tire pressure monitoring i’ve got more

Detail in my written review linked below but for 2023 and beyond those specs are well behind the times all right let’s play a game let’s see if you can pick every difference between this the gr86 and this the brz and for every correct answer you get 10 points so for the first person who gets the right answer in the comments section below you’ll win a prize so

You ready three two one go it’s hard isn’t it the changes between the two models are seemingly less prominent than the last generation and really at a glance you might only notice the badges have changed it could be even harder to pick them from the back again if someone decided to de-badge their brz or gr-86 you could struggle to notice what’s changed inside

It’s possibly even harder to spot what’s changed unless you’re looking at the gts version with the optional red finish in the gr86 okay so how did you go my score was 700 points no not really but the differences are pretty subtle you have to admit next up let’s take a look at the practicality of this little coupe are you the sort of person who’s looking to

Upgrade from your old 86 or brz well it’s not going to feel dramatically different in here to you if that’s the case if you’re new to gr-86 well it might also feel like it’s not an overly new interior experience because there are some carryover elements and the design hasn’t changed dramatically between the last generation and this one obviously there are some

Changes some important ones too including this new media screen which isn’t like any other toyota screen because it’s not it’s a subaru screen and that’s not a problem it works pretty well although i have had my phone drop out on apple carplay a couple of times even on this short launch drive so that’s a little alarming other things that you will notice that

Are different about the cabin this steering wheel feels nicer in the hand it just sits better it seems like it’s not as chunky or chubby as the last one and i like that and also behind that you’ll notice digital instrumentation i do like that too because it is an upgrade from the previous version which has had the regular old dials it does look pretty neat and

It is easier to read at speed which is important in a car like this some of the other carryover style elements uh well this one’s got a regular old handbrake which is pretty cool there are seat heater switches down here as well as there used to be in the top spec versions at least and now there’s also a climate control dial system here which thankfully is still

Dials and doesn’t run through a screen like some of the other new cars out there like i said it is an all new so that’s kind of a nice thing to its benefit there are cupholders between the seat here and that button seems a little bit glitchy which is a bit annoying they are big enough for bottles and that’s good because the bottle holders in the doors tend to

Let the bottles sort of move around a lot especially in a car like this they aren’t as secure as they probably should be there’s also usb ports in there so you can connect up to the screen which is good and also let’s talk about comfort and basically the support that the seat offers you because the seat is excellent it has a really nice feel to the support

Underneath your thighs and up your back as well you need to feel like you are sitting in a sports car when you’re sitting in a sports car and these seats certainly live up to that notion now i guess i should probably show you what the back seats like you’re gonna make me do that okay yeah this is awesome this is exactly what this car’s made for fitting a six

Foot person behind their own driving position no but seriously it isn’t made for tall people you can fit kids back here or shorter people there are isofix points and top tether points for both seats as well which is a bonus if you do happen to use this maybe as a second car and you do want to put a child seat in the back but as it is for adults don’t just don’t

You aren’t buying a toyota 86 coupe if you want the most practical toyota and there are probably dozens of other toyotas you could choose and this car does have a pretty small boot and there’s also a lift up section here which used to have an optional spare wheel but there’s no spare wheel option anymore this time around now you can fold the seat back down as

You could with the last one and that will allow you to fit four wheels and tires in the back provided that they’re not 25 inch wheels with massive tires of course but it is a practical enough sports car for someone who is going to go to the track or who just wants a nice weekender the toyota gr-86 comes with a five-year unlimited kilometer warranty which is

Bang on average for a mainstream brand but if you maintain your car with the brand you get up to seven years of powertrain cover that means engine transmission that sort of stuff unlike other performance models though there’s no track warranty cover capped price servicing is included for up to five years or 75 000 k’s meaning maintenance is due every 12 months

Or 15 000 k’s is it fairly priced well at 280 per visit for the first five services it represents an annual saving of about 215 over the equivalent subaru that’s a nice way to recoup a little bit of that extra cost that toyota charges initially the sort of person who’s looking at a gr86 has probably already made up their mind that they want one or maybe you’re

The sort of person who’s looking to upgrade from the old 86 and wondering whether this is worth that extra money well the answer is yes it is more expensive but it does also feel like a more complete and more compelling sports car experience than the last generation model maybe not quite as fun and that could be a crucial element for some customers but it is

Definitely technically more impressive now if you’re wondering what my score is that’s coming up in a sec and if you are watching on youtube don’t forget hit like and subscribe it helps us out thanks for watching here comes that score

Transcribed from video
2023 Toyota GR86 review: Sports coupe is angrier than ever – but is it better than the original 86? By CarsGuideliveBroadcastDetails{isLiveNowfalsestartTimestamp2022-09-22T090014+0000endTimestamp2022-09-22T091702+0000}