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The long awaited hugely popular Toyota and Subaru affordable sports car was unveiled in concept form at the Tokyo Motorshow. The sport coupe is currently named the FT-86 Concept and was designed in France

Toyota fans would instantly recognise the 86 badging as a spiritual successor to the AE86 sport coupe of the 1980s, a car based on the Corolla of the time.

The idea is simple, design a cheap, affordable, rear-wheel drive sports car to bring fun to the masses.

The design work was done at Toyota’s ED2 styling studio in France, Subaru will fit its 2.0-litre boxer engine (found in the Impreza). Toyota has been so particular about this concept that even the blue-red metallic paint was specially developed by the company.

“Sports cars have to be red, but we wanted a new red,” chief engineer Tetsuya Tada said. “So we came up with shoujyouhi red, the traditional red color of a Japanese monkey’s backside”.

Don’t run to your Subaru or Toyota dealer yet, the sports car will go into production in late 2011. Toyota will do most of the engineering work, Subaru will give its engine and the car will be put together at a Subaru plant.

Toyota is determined to keep the price of the car down in the USD $20,000 range ($22,000 direct conversion, although we believe it will be in the high 20s low 30s when it comes to Australia).

The car is designed from the ground up and does not share platform with any other current car. Engine will be at the front and power will go to the rear-wheels. If it uses the same engine as the current Impreza, it will have around 110kW and 200Nm or torque.

At the recent Subaru Liberty/Outback launch CarAdvice had the opportunity to ask the head of Subaru’s performance brand STI whether or not it will drop the 2.5-litre turbocharged engine in this car and the response was positive.

We can only imagine what an tuned by STI version of this car could do! Would you buy the Toyota version or the Subaru version of this car?

FT-86 Concept dimensions:
Length 4,160 mm
Width 1,760 mm
Height 1,260 mm
Wheelbase 2,570 mm
Seating 4