THE LAST HURRAH

Could this be it for factory-fresh affordable driver's cars? With the Toyota GR86 now finally unleashed on UK roads, Matt Saunders lets loose in one for posterity

What you are about to read is almost certainly the most superfluous drive verdict that Autocar will publish this year. The sports car-buying public of Great Britain has long since made its mind up about the Toyota GR86. In 2022, as it turns out, anew rear-drive coupé with a particular reputation for driver appeal sells out faster than the town’s best artisanal bakery on Saturday morning.

We can point to the frenzied enthusiasm of early first drive reports on the GR86 to at least partly explain why two years’ worth of allocation for this car sold out in just 90 minutes. But the pervading narrative that has surrounded all discussion of the GR86 since even before those first drive reports landed that, in a context in which fewer and fewer cars ofits ilk are even being considered, surely this has to be one of the last affordable combustion-engined sports cars Europe will ever see) must be the biggest factor of all.

Who would believe, then, that the reason this car will only survive on sale anywhere in western Europe until July 2024 has nothing whatsoever to do with emissions? Who would have dared suggest, on the back of the glittering praise of those first drive reports 10 months ago, that it would be anything other than phenomenal on UK roads? Well, don't worry, you lucky deposit holders: they haven't screwed it up. That's not the reason the new GR86 has been in stasis these past few months, in Toyota GB holding areas at Burnaston and Burgh Heath.

As Autocar understands it, following the GR86's European press at Monteblanco circuit in Spain, certain highly placed Gazoo Racing project engineers thought its vehicle stability control software could be improved. It should have been a simple update, but it took a little longer than expected.