Toyota to Launch '86' Sports Car in April

Toyota Motor Corp announced Feb 2, 2012, that it will release the "86" FR (front-engine rear-wheel-drive) sports car April 6, 2012.

The price of the vehicle ranges from ¥1.99 million to 3.05 million (approx US$26,126-40,042). Toyota realized a low-priced model by removing an air conditioner, etc on the assumption that users will make improvements to the vehicle for racing.

The 86 was developed based on Toyota President Akio Toyoda's view, "'Sports' will never disappear in the automobile market." The company aims to sell 1,000 units of the vehicle per month.

The price of the low-priced model, "RC" (six-speed manual transmission), is ¥1.99 million. And the middle-priced model, "G," is priced at ¥2.41 million (six-speed manual transmission) or 2.48 million (six-speed automatic transmission).

"They are highly customizable," said Tetsuya Tada, who led the development of the 86 at Toyota as a chief engineer.

To make it easy for users to make improvements to the vehicle, Toyota provided information about the vehicle to even parts makers that do not have capital ties with Toyota when the 86 was still under development so that many parts will be released at the same time as the release of the vehicle.

The high-priced model, "GT," is equipped with 17-inch wheels and priced at ¥2.79 million (six-speed manual transmission) or 2.87 million (six-speed automatic transmission). And the highest-priced model, "GT 'Limited,'" uses genuine leather, etc for its interior and is priced at ¥2.97 million (six-speed manual transmission) or 3.05 million (six-speed automatic transmission).

This time, Toyota announced that it will start a service to send the information that is about the status of the vehicle and used for the "CAN" automotive LAN to a smartphone so that the user can check the information on the phone. The information includes about 30 kinds of data including vehicle speed, location information, engine speed, steering angle, brake pedal stroke, longitudinal acceleration, lateral acceleration, yaw rate and operation information of ABS and VDC (vehicle dynamics control).

This is Toyota's first attempt to make this much information available to users, the company said.

This function is realized by inserting a separately-sold data logger into a USB socket inside the glove compartment and transmitting data to a smartphone via Bluetooth.

"We want to offer an SDK for obtaining vehicle information in the future so that many software developers can create applications," Toyota said.

The data logger is scheduled to be released in the middle of 2012. Also, the vehicle information can be used for Gran Turismo, game software developed by Sony Computer Entertainment (SCE) Inc, and the movement of the vehicle can be simulated in the game.