Hotter Toyota 86 hits UK

Toyota will return to the Goodwood Festival of Speed a year after the local launch of its new 86 sports coupe at the same venue with a hard-core racing version dubbed the TRD Griffon Project.

Created by the Japanese giant’s performance division, Toyota Racing Developments (TRD), the most extreme factory 86 will make its UK debut at Goodwood following its first appearance at the Tokyo Auto Salon earlier this year.

Although it’s not intended for production, Toyota says the Griffon was developed specifically to showcase TRD’s performance parts and features extensive modifications to reduce weight and strengthen the chassis for track driving.

As with the GT 86 TRD limited-edition that Toyota released in the UK in February, many of the TRD Griffon Project’s components can be specified for 86 customer cars in Britain.

They include a unique TRD mechanical differential to replace the Torsen limited-slip diff in manual models, a shorter (4.8:1) final drive ratio, coil-over suspension, a new oil-cooler and TRD mono-block brake callipers with race-spec pads.

While the production 86’s Subaru-sourced 2.0-litre four-cylinder boxer engine remains unchanged, the 86 Griffon also features a carbon-fibre roof, bonnet, doors, bootlid and rear wings, with carbonfibre-reinforced plastic construction for the bumpers, front wings and rear diffuser.

Polycarbonate also replaces the standard car’s glass windows and a racier TRD driver’s bucket seat, gear knob, ignition button and gauges are also fitted, along with a Momo steering wheel, Takata seatbelts and TWS 18-inch alloy wheels with Yokohama Advan tyres.

Toyota offers a small number of factory accessories for the 86 in Australia, where the waiting list for certain variants can still stretch out to eight months and where a wide variety of aftermarket go-faster parts are available.

However, Toyota Australia still says it has no plans to make the 86 available with parts from the TRD brand, which was killed off Down Under in March 2009 following delayed launches, slow sales and embarrassing engine failures.

“Whilst the TRD Griffon is certainly a fantastic concept, we currently have no plans for any TRD package or TRD-based limited edition here in Australia,” spokesman Mike Breen told motoring.com.au.

Launched in June 2012 with a starting price of just $29,990 plus on-road costs, the 86 has been a smash hit in Australia, where to May this year Toyota has sold a total of 5098 examples.

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