Tada's GT-86 Dreams Decoded

Derek Kreindler
by Derek Kreindler

Ahh, the benefits of free PR. Mere minutes after Toyota UK’s official blog posted their “interview” with GT 86 chief engineer Tetsuya Tada, the outlets of the autoblogosphere were alight with Tada’s comments praising shooting brakes.

See, dropping a choice quote about Tada’s desire for a GT86 shooting brake isn’t just a coldly calculated way to ensure that this interview is re-posted ad infintium on every content aggregator and “enthusiast blog” (read: free PR machine for the OEMs) in the world. It also provides a bit of insight into the economics of vehicle development, sales and manufacturing today – not to mention the PR and marketing side.

Here’s a step-by-step guide to how it all works. Toyota’s in-house communication channel gets an “exclusive” interview with Tada-san, which is even more tightly controlled than it would be with a third party blog. Everything here is being tailored to get the exact message out that Toyota wants.

But it can’t be too dry and fawning, or else the rest of the blogosphere wouldn’t seize on the original work, alter it slightly and then publish it under their own name. So a few nuggets must be dropped in to appeal to the auto blogger army, who tend to be automotive uber-nerds of the highest order. So we get the following quote

“Mass producing a sports car for a company like Toyota carries a big business risk and we’ve tried to mitigate that risk with our collaboration with Subaru. We say, ‘mitigate’ in one [easy] word, but we had to make some really tough decisions for us to realise this. Also, along the way, we investigated the possibility of a sedan [saloon] and a shooting brake.”

At this point, a million articles entitled “SCION FR-S SEDAN AND SHOOTING BRAKE HINTED AT BY TOYOTA”, and that’s that. The real juice is of course, further down the article, but over the heads of anyone without real understanding of the auto industry.

“It’s just my personal dream that the GT86 could become a family like what BMW has done with the Mini family. I hope that happens.”

Whereas the car nerds see a savior-like product that can redeem the homogeneous soulless and terminally boring auto industry, Toyota sees a costly niche vehicle with little opportunity to take advantage of scale. Car development is a multi-billion dollar exercise. If a giant like Toyota needed to partner with Subaru to mitigate some of the financial risk, you can imagine what an undertaking the 86 program must have been.

Luckily, there’s a way around this problem, as BMW has demonstrated with Mini; make a million variants of the base car, with each one carrying a slight differentiation and a substantial price premium to allow for greater margin. While most Mini variants look like a cynical exercise in foisting high margin crap on self-concious yuppies, a range of FT-86 derived products would be pretty cool. Who in their right mind wouldn’t want a lineup of affordable, rear-drive vehicles that met their practical as well as emotional needs? The complexities of vehicle design also dictate that variants like a convertible had to be thought of in advance during the 86’s engineering.

There’s a good chance that these future variants, like a shooting brake and a sedan, were also envisioned, and likely not forgotten. Auto makers do not just turn on a dime and decide to produce a full lineup just because one niche sports car has done well – the timeline of vehicle development is simply too long and too planned in advance for these things to happen. Everything in this business comes down to money. If it don’t make dollars, it don’t make sense. Never forget that. In fact, it’s quite liberating. And sometimes, it even leads to desirable outcomes like this.

Derek Kreindler
Derek Kreindler

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  • Niky Niky on Mar 15, 2013

    A "shooting brake"? Oh, in other words, they're finally going to make a new 86? As a shooting brake is basically a hatchback with a squared off butt. I think a hatchback variant of the 86 would be a fantastic idea, give it a little more headroom in the (still useless) rear seat and lots more space for extra tires. A sedan variant would likely be a way to tie the 86 into the Lexus line as a sub-IS model... something in the 1-series size range (but cheaper in Toyota spec). No point in making a car that costs a crapload of money to develop if you don't milk it for all it's worth.

    • JMII JMII on Mar 18, 2013

      Agreed the GT-86 should have been a hatch from the start, like it was originally. This is (was?) a no brainer! I still don't understand why the current car has a trunk. Let me guess - rear stiffness? That's the reason my Z has that stupid bar in the back. I'm a sucker for hatchs... so much more convenient. The wife has a Volvo C30 and now realizes how much easier loading and unloading various sized items are when you have a hatch style opening vs the mail slot you get with modern trunks (small deck lids + high bumpers = no room).

  • Akitadog Akitadog on Mar 15, 2013

    If they decide to make a shooting brake, I hope they use some of that extended rear head room to push back the rear seats a couple inches. Then it would make much more sense.

  • CanadaCraig You can just imagine how quickly the tires are going to wear out on a 5,800 lbs AWD 2024 Dodge Charger.
  • Luke42 I tried FSD for a month in December 2022 on my Model Y and wasn’t impressed.The building-blocks were amazing but sum of the all of those amazing parts was about as useful as Honda Sensing in terms of reducing the driver’s workload.I have a list of fixes I need to see in Autopilot before I blow another $200 renting FSD. But I will try it for free for a month.I would love it if FSD v12 lived up to the hype and my mind were changed. But I have no reason to believe I might be wrong at this point, based on the reviews I’ve read so far. [shrug]. I’m sure I’ll have more to say about it once I get to test it.
  • FormerFF We bought three new and one used car last year, so we won't be visiting any showrooms this year unless a meteor hits one of them. Sorry to hear that Mini has terminated the manual transmission, a Mini could be a fun car to drive with a stick.It appears that 2025 is going to see a significant decrease in the number of models that can be had with a stick. The used car we bought is a Mk 7 GTI with a six speed manual, and my younger daughter and I are enjoying it quite a lot. We'll be hanging on to it for many years.
  • Oberkanone Where is the value here? Magna is assembling the vehicles. The IP is not novel. Just buy the IP at bankruptcy stage for next to nothing.
  • Jalop1991 what, no Turbo trim?
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