The Toyota 86 is a sports coupé developed jointly by Japanese automobile manufacturers Toyota and Subaru. It features a boxer engine, front-engine, rear-wheel drive layout and 2+2 seating.

The 86 is sold under three different brands associated with its creators, Toyota and Subaru. Toyota (Toyota 86 in Japan, South Africa and Australia and Toyota GT86 in Europe), Subaru (Subaru BRZ) and Scion (Scion FR-S for the United States and Canada).

"86" (pronounced "eight-six" or Hachi-Roku (ハチロク), more commonly pronounced as "eighty-six") refers to the Toyota AE86, a popular and well-regarded series of rear-wheel drive sports coupes and hatchbacks sold as the Toyota Sprinter Trueno and Toyota Corolla Levin from 1983 to 1987 . As such, the Toyota 86 has been named as the spiritual successor of the original AE86 during the press release of the 86. The heritage of the Toyota 86 can also be traced back to the Toyota 2000GT, Toyota's classic front engine, rear-drive sports car with a 2.0 liter engine along with the Toyota Sports 800, Toyota's first sports car which used a boxer engine. Coincidently, the bore and stroke of the engine is also 86 mm.

The significance of the reference to the series AE86 was that both the Trueno and Levin of this series were the last with rear wheel drive; the following Sprinter Trueno and Corolla Levin series AE92 were released with front wheel drive thereafter. The previous Corolla Levin and Sprinter Trueno were performance enhanced trim packages of the Corolla and Sprinter for each generation of the Levin and T

Aoshima kits of late have been very well designed and quite complete. This one is no exception. Molded in several colors of plastic, the parts are superbly detailed and free of flash and other deformations. White and black are the primary colors of plastic with the black parts being used for chassis parts and some interior bits while white is the predominant shade of the body parts. There are also 'chrome' sprues which are, in fact, nicely done aluminum plating.

As with many of their kits, this one is a curbside and while there is no engine, the chassis and suspension detailing is superb. You get two different options in terms of suspension height with one being lower than the other, something I have not seen since the old days of SMP kits. Much of the construction will center around building the interior, and there are some painting differences depending on which version of the car you are building. I should also mention that there is a lot of painting that will need to be done to get the details right and this makes it pretty much an on-going process while building this car. While discussing the interior, you can build this one as either right hand or left hand drive and different dash boards are provided depending on your choice. This also extends to the center console.

Aoshima provides the builder with masks for the windows and windscreen, something I wish all car kit makers included as they are very handy. Much of the reason for this is that windows are now glued in place at the factory and there is usually a black surround to all the windows to help hide this. There body has separate nose and tail inserts to provide the proper car details for the Japanese or North American version. Tires are rubber/vinyl and are handed so be sure to pay attention to this during your build.

Instructions are mostly in Japanese, but there is enough English so that you will have no issues deciding what goes where. Any differences in version are clearly marked. One will need to determine the variant being built pretty quickly into the build. The decals such as they are, are for the instruments and the trim markings. You can build either the Toyota 86, Toyota GT86 or the Scion FR-S. A full color chart using Gunze paints is provided and the small decal sheet (not shown) is well printed.

In all, it makes for an excellent kit of this new Japanese hot rod. Those into modern cars will be delighted with it and those looking for something a bit different will also be pleased with this kit.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_GT_86

December 2012

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