Our sports coupé proves its usability
even during its running-in period
The first test for the long-term GT86 was
just three days after it arrived: Junior Handling Day. No problem. Well, one
problem. The test, obviously, would involve quite a lot of hard driving, and
the GT86 had arrived with just 61 miles on the clock.
If I wanted to run the car in — avoiding hard
loads and high revs, while not sitting at a constant speed — I’d have to get a
lot of driving in. This, as it turns out, is no great hardship.
A customer has written in to share his
experience of GT86 ownership. He wasn’t a fan of the ride, but I have to say I
don’t mind it. It’s firm, no question, but so impeccably controlled that I can
easily live with it.
GT86
is a car you want to drive just for the sake of it, even when running errands
A few of his other niggles started to chime
with me as the miles increased, though. The only way to control the stereo’s
volume is via a small dashboard knob; there’s no steering wheel shortcut. I’m
trying to accept this is a good thing: less weight, less complication, and
that. Anyway, what else would I be doing with my time? It’s no great hardship.
But a better, bigger, rubbery button wouldn’t hurt. The stereo’s sound quality
isn’t all that, either, and there’s no LW or DAB.
The road noise? No question it makes a
hands-free conversation a shouty affair unless you’re sitting in traffic, but
again the only way I could imagine sorting it is by adding more weight.
Driving
position is nigh-on perfect and there is sufficient room for all but the
extremely tall
These are the compromises a sports car like
the GT86 demands, I guess, and they’re ones I’m prepared to make. Besides
which, if we want less weight in cars in general, they’re ones we might have to
make more often.
Anyway, 900 miles in a few days can be
covered pretty easily in a car like this — partly by going for drives purely
for the sake of them, and partly by using the Toyota for mundane errands that
might seem ridiculous in other sports cars. Errands like picking up an
11-year-old child from school and then heading to a DIY store to buy a
2.4m-long piece of 4x2 and expecting both to fit. Praise be: the GT86’s rear
bench folds, and the cabin is long enough to accommodate the timber.
That level of usefulness helps to set the
GT86 further apart from other specialist two-seat sports cars and makes it a
genuine alternative if you’re swapping out of a hot hatchback or a saloon car.
Rear
space is modest and will suffice for children and adults over short trips
And that’s what made it relevant enough to
be set against the other cars in our sub-$50,510 handling competition on an
even footing. We had an Ariel Atom there too, undoubtedly the most fun of them
all, but we treated it almost like a benchmark; it’s what you can do if you
forgo any pretence of practicality.
The Toyota, however, shows what you can do
while retaining a heavy dose of usability. It secured a podium position on the
handling test with ease. And the thing is, although there’s now no requirement
to go for a running-in drive, I’m still driving it just for the sake of it.
