CARLOS LAGO: Hey, Carlos
Lago, with Edmunds here. And Toyota has brought
us out to Monticello-- or "Mon-tih-chell-oh"-- hey,
"to-may-to," "to-mah-to," right-- Raceway Park to experience
the 2022 Toyota GR 86. [MUSIC PLAYING] This car used to be
called the Toyota 86. Before that, it
was the Scion FR-S. It also shares most of its
parts with the Subaru BRZ. But we'll get into that later. What is this thing? Well, it's a lightweight,
fun-to-drive, inexpensive sports car, in the
traditional sense of the word, or the definition,
or the phrase, let's say. In this video, we're
going to explore what's new about this
new generation of the 86 and what it's changed to
keep that sports car driving experience alive. If you like this video
and others like it, tell us in the comments below. Also, tell me the right
pronunciation of Monticello, or "Mon-tih-chell-oh." Click Like and Subscribe. Check the links
in the description and edmunds.com/sellmycar
to get an instant cash offer on the car you want to sell. Let's get to it. Let's first talk about the
engine in the Toyota GR 86. If you look hard, you'll
find no turbocharger. Yes, unlike every
other similarly priced sporty compact
car in this segment, they're all turbocharged. And this one isn't. Actually, correction-- the
Miata isn't turbocharged, and neither is the
86 and the BRZ. I say that because the
Civic Si is turbocharged. Civic Type R is turbocharged. The Subaru WRX is turbocharged. Hyundai Veloster
N is turbocharged. Volkswagen GTI is turbocharged. And even the Ford
Mustang and Chevy Camaro have turbocharged
four-cylinder engines. You don't get one in the
86 or the Subaru BRZ. What you do get, though,
is a bigger engine in terms of displacement,
versus last year. This is a 2.4 liter flat-four,
and that means more power. Quick nerdy thing
about engines-- so one of the reasons why
this car is called the 86 is because the boron stroke
of the last generation engine was 86 millimeters. Bore is the diameter of
the piston, or cylinder, and stroke is how
much that piston moves within the cylinder. That's how you get displacement. In this, though, they've
enlarged the bore to 94 millimeters, so it's
now 86 and 94 stroke vs. bore. So you can't really use that
as a reason to call it the 86. But hey, that's been your
nerdy tech minute with Edmunds. This GR 86 is rated at
around 230 horsepower. More importantly, torque
is increased a lot, too. The increase is important,
because it happens all over the power band. So this should be more fun to
drive at lower engine speeds. Speaking of, 0 to
60 acceleration is claimed in the low
six-second range for the manual and then the mid-six-second
range for the automatic. Yes, you can still get
an automatic with this. Fuel economy, though,
is a little worse-- 20 MPG to 24 MPG
combined, depending on if you get the manual or
the automatic-- so a power increase, which is good,
and a speed increase, which is even better. The 2022 GR 86 is
roughly the same size as the previous generation. What's nice about that
is Toyota has actually been able to keep the
weight similar as well. You've got an aluminum roof. You've got aluminum fenders. And some other tricks
like that keep the weight to 2,800 pounds. Or at least that's what
Toyota is claiming. Inside, the interior is
very similar, as well, with layout and whatnot. You still have two
real back seats. You can still flip
those seat backs down. And Toyota has made sure that
you can fit four mounted wheels and tires in this car, which is
a really helpful thing that you can't do with some sports cars. As far as the rest
of the interior goes, it's all fairly straightforward. This screen has Apple
CarPlay and Android Auto-- massive help there. But I really want to call
out this digital gauge cluster, which I really like. It looks cool. For one, it's shaped like a
horizontally opposed engine, if you were looking
at it from the side. A four-cylinder traditionally
has its four cylinders vertical like that. And in a horizontally
opposed engine, the cylinders are split,
and the two face each other, laying sideways. And if you were to
look at it sideways, it would actually
look like that. And when we start this car
up, the little start-up graphic it does
mimics the cylinder movement within an engine. That's just a neat little touch. More functionally, though,
it's an easy screen to read. And in fact, if I put it in
track mode, which automatically happens when you turn
off stability control, you get this nice
bar style tachometer that prioritizes the higher
parts of the tachometer. So who cares on track what's
happening beneath 4,000 RPM? You have this big window to see
what the engine speed is at. I really like that, and the
shift light is easy to see, too-- overall very functional,
pretty comfortable, and a nice package
for the money. We're going to hop in this
car and see how things go. I'm looking forward to it. There will be no power sliding
or drifting in this video. While I was learning the car,
before we started filming, I was told a number of
times to stop drifting. [ENGINE REVVING] [LAUGHTER] So now I must do that. We have stability
control on instead. And I'm going to
talk about what it's like to drive when
I'm not drifting. Never mind what the
press materials say. Never mind what the
market materials say. I will not be drifting this car. I can tell you, though,
it's a lot of fun to drift. And I bring that up,
because I've never driven on this racetrack before. I've never driven
this car before. And often, the thing that we run
into, criticizing cars the way we do, is we drive them
frequently on unfamiliar roads. So we always have to leave
a little bit in reserve. You can tell,
though, when a sports car is going to
be nice to drive, when you feel like
you can immediately get to pace with it. Immediately, you start driving
it the way that you would most enjoy driving it. And that's what happened
with this GR 86. The Scion FR-S, the
Toyota 86, that's now Toyota GR 86,
the Subaru BRZ, they are cars that
have historically been very easy to drive. They're great teachers about
how to drive rear-wheel drive sports cars. They clearly
communicate what the car wants to do after you've
given it inputs to do things. And that's the case with
this 2022 model as well. They also have the
first gen 86 is here for us to drive back-to-back. And by and large, the experience
is consistent between the two. But there are
dramatic improvements with this 2022 version. The biggest
difference-- or there's actually two big differences. The one that will jump out
to you first is the steering. This steering feels very
immediate on the initial turn, and there isn't a big
dead spot, like there is comparatively with the 86. This feels really quick
and really nicely balanced. The second is the power. Having that increase
in torque makes for an engine that pulls more
cleanly and more aggressively at low engine speeds. With the last gen
86 and the BRZ, when you were off the
power band in low RPMs, it was pretty
frustrating waiting for the engine to come back on. You would just sit and
wait for the tach to climb. And the dead spot
in the lower part of the acceleration, the
low part of the power band was frustrating. This doesn't have that at all. This feels pretty strong
throughout its entire power band. It actually sounds
pretty decent, too, for a horizontally-opposed
four-cylinder. The real sweet spot, though,
or what that allows you to do, is take advantage of the
chassis, which is just sweet. You get two tire size and
tire options on the 2022 86. The base car comes
with a 17-inch wheel. And a Michelin Primacy
tire was the same time you had on the
last generation 86. And the tire doesn't
have a lot of traction. It's the one I got trouble
with drifting too much with. And that lack of
traction is really fun, because at speed, when
you're driving hard, it's kind of like
driving in the rain. And you get to see
how your inputs, how the car reacts to your inputs. And by doing that,
you can have a lot of fun by pushing the
front end into a corner to be more stable,
lifting off the throttle to induce oversteer. It's like a car control clinic. If I ran a driving school, it
would be a fleet of those cars. The 86 were driving
right now is the Premium. And this comes with
an 18-inch wheel-- [BELL RING]---- and a Michelin
Pilot Sport 4S tire, which has a lot
more traction in it. And that traction enables
way higher speeds, compared to the 17-inch tire,
and a lot of fun because of it. Because in places
where you get oversteer or a little bit of understeer
with that smaller tire, you can stay pinned in this one. And that's a lot of fun. I really admire what Toyota
and Subaru have done here with the 86 and the
BRZ, because you have supremely fun-to-drive
cars, supremely fun-to-drive rear-wheel drive cars at a
relatively affordable price and a car that encourages you
to use it the way you would want to use a rear-drive sports car. Yeah, it's probably
not going to be the quickest car on the street. That was true for
the last gen one, and it's still probably going
to be true for this one. I'm OK with that, though,
because of the newfound power the car has. That's going to make it a
little bit more livable. That just feels good. This manual is a
lot of fun to shift. You don't have to be aggressive. You can be quick. You don't have to manhandle it. I really like how this throws. Just that feels good. The automatic is pleasant, too. It would not be my
transmission of choice. It shouldn't be your
transmission of choice, not because it's bad, but
because you really want a manual, to experience what
the best of a sports car can deliver. That transmission, though, is
going to be easier, of course, in stop-and-go traffic, not
that these clutches were ever particularly annoying. And on track, it
works just fine. You have paddle shifters. And yeah, I have no
complaints about it. But still get the manual. I started out by talking about
getting criticized by the team here for drifting too much. Yeah, that was
frustrating at first. But I actually
appreciate what happened. Well, one, it's raining now. Two, I started driving
with the traction control on in its track-oriented mode. And I've got to say, I'm
pleasantly surprised by it. Because yeah, it
wouldn't allow me to get the lurid oversteer
that got me in trouble. But it allowed me to maintain
that subtle oversteer, that lets you explore the
balance of the car, and only came in, once
you started slowing down, because you transitioned
into a slide. That's a really nice
feature, because this car, I would categorize this as
an excellent learner's car for an on-track rear-wheel
drive handling basics. And to have a stability
control system that allows you to experience that,
but still have a safety net, is really valuable. Overall, I really
like the Toyota GR 86. This 2022 version increases
the strengths of the 86 and keeps it true to
its mission, which is to be an inexpensive,
lightweight, fun-to-drive sports car. And I really like the fact
that Toyota has done things like give you a
year-long membership to the NASA, National American
Sports Car Association. I think that's the acronym. But Toyota has encouraged
you, in doing so, to experience track days,
to drive your car the way it's intended to be driven. I really appreciate
that mindset. So bravo, Toyota. I'm really enjoying
myself in this car. And I think anybody
who picks this up will feel the same way,
when they get theirs. [MUSIC PLAYING] If you like this video
and others like it, tell us in the Comments below. Also, click Like and Subscribe. Check the links
in the description and edmunds.com/sellmycar
to get an instant cash offer on the car you want to sell. [MUSIC PLAYING]
