New Car Rant

NEW!! Check Out Our Very Own New AE86 Concept, Courtesy of Bryan H!!!

A message to Toyota from me:
I am very interested in the possibility of new sporting Toyota models for the U.S. market in the near future. I am commited to Toyota as a company, and sincerely enjoy the Toyota I own now, an AE86 Corolla GT-S. I have considered buying a new car on many occasions, and my commitment to Toyota is strong enough that I keep looking to Toyota when I think of new cars. I test drove the Celica GT-S when it came out, and thought about it long and hard. I like the way Toyota manages to combine value, mechanical strength and reliability, a very sporting character, and most importantly, a rear-wheel-drive coupe that is fun-to-drive! If a new Toyota in this same vein were available, I would buy it in a heartbeat. The MR-Spyder, Celica GT-S, upcoming Matrix (AKA JDM Corolla RunX,) and Lexus IS300 are all exciting vehicles, and I applaud the direction Toyota has been heading with these new additions to a more staid lineup. The sporting nature of these models is attractive to me; however, my main interest is in a basic, affordable, four-cylinder, rear-wheel-drive closed coupe, a car missing from the current Toyota lineup, and from the American market as a whole. With a modern interpretation of the classic AE86 Corolla, Toyota could command this currently untapped segment of the automotive market. I would suggest looking at the Japanese market Toyota Altezza RS200 as a source of inspiration or potential starting point. I had high hopes that the Lexus IS300 would be the car for me, but after test-driving it, I found that it is too expensive, too luxury, and not sporting enough for me. If I wanted a car in this vein (near-luxury sports sedan) there are other offerings on the market, and I would have bought one of those already. Please consider a "new AE86" when developing future Toyota models; my money is waiting for a car of this type!

Do you have similar views? Would you like to share them with Toyota? I can provide you with information on how to contact Toyota yourself if you are that ambitious. I would appreciate feedback on the idea of a petition we could all sign and submit to Toyota. I may start working on a form on this very page, where you could simply fill in your name to be added to the "signatures" on this "petition." Please let me know if you have any ideas or suggestions. What I need most is to hear from those of you who would just like to have your "Me too!" opinion counted.

E-Mail Me
sidewaystoyota at hotmail dot com
Make AE86 Webpage your subject or I will delete your mail! Sorry, but spammers have forced me.

Some Links to Speculative News Sites With "New AE86" Content

Danny's Scoop-Volume 16

Mag-X Scoop-From Japan

Australian Toyota News Page

There was also an article in Car and Driver, "Toyota Considers a Sporting Future" on page 36 of the September 2001 issue, which has information on the "new AE86" concept.

How You Can Help

1) First, please send me your name, e-mail address, location, and any comments. I think it is wonderful if people want to take the time to write to and/or call Toyota themselves...please do. But we also need to present a united front; I strongly believe that there is more interest in this type of car than most people realize. I think our case will be made stronger with Toyota if they come out of it saying, "Not only have we gotten all these letters and phone calls, but we have this petition with all these signatures!" We can't hit 'em with too much. If they see all of our names several times each, it will just further the strength of our interest with Toyota.

2) Call the Toyota Customer Assistance Center
(800) 331-4331

3) Write to:
Toyota Motor Sales
19001 Southwest Ave
Torrance, CA 90509

4) Stop by your local dealer.
Share your interest with them. Tell them about your current Toyota, share your commitment to Toyota as a brand, and tell them what you like about your current car(s). Then tell them that you would like them to pass along your interest in a rear-wheel drive coupe to Toyota product development at their next meeting. This statement is made more powerful if you can honestly tell them why you aren't interested in buying a current Toyota model (i.e. "I test drove the Celica GT-S and didn't like its handling dynamics. I would consider a new Matrix, but I would really prefer strictly rear-wheel drive, etc.")

5) Go to www.toyota.com and follow the links to owners at Toyota. You can log on here with your Toyota's VIN (located at the base of the windshield) and then use the link called "contact" to e-mail the Toyota Customer Assistance Center.

6) Toyota Racing Development has been interested in my future model preferences in the past. Call Toyota Racing Development to let them know you are interested in the car:
(800) 688-5912 customer service

7) Write to Toyota Racing Development (TRD) in addition to calling. It can't hurt to have it on record twice!:
1382 Valencia Ave.
Tustin, CA 92780

8) Tell your friends who might like a new RWD Toyota...Get them to check out this page, send me an e-mail, and give Toyota a phone call! Do all of this in a polite and helpful way. I find it works best to come at it from an angle of "I love my Toyota. I am strongly commited to Toyota and would love to buy a new car. However, there are no current cars, let alone Toyotas, that offer what I am looking for. I would like to help you by providing information that will help to develop Toyota products that are more likely to appeal to me."

Yes, it does take some time. But we have to keep after it if this is really what we want. And who wouldn't like to see a new RWD Toyota coupe in the affordable compact segement of the market?

Excerpt from my Travel Diary from Japan Regarding the Altezza in the Showroom in Ikebukuro
I spend over half and hour at the Toyota Altezza (Japanese version of the Lexus IS300,) just staring at it...it looks so much better in person! The exterior styling is really striking, and it just keeps growing on me.

Me sitting in the Tokyo Toyota Amlux showroom in a JDM Altezza.
While the overall proportions are nothing new, the details are far more interesting than any BMW sports sedan...the subtle hood bulge, the shape of the headlights, the taillight style (this is car this style originated with,) the complex curves of the front fenders, the amazingly subtle upward-curving character line down the side...this is no slab-hood, slab-fender, kidney-grill Beemer. Toyota can take their "chronograph-style" instrument panel and shove it where the sun don't shine...gak! How do you read that thing?...But the rest of the interior is nice. Sitting in one makes me want one all the more, almost enough to move here just to get one! As I sit in the car and think about it, I get more and more agitated and emotional. I have never driven one, but I want it so badly. It is hard to face how amazing this car is. U.S. $17,000-some, 30-some MPG, 212hp 2.0 liter four-cylinder engine, rear-wheel drive, six-speed manual transmission, small-almost exactly the same size as the new Celica, and it weighs under 3000 pounds, hundreds of pounds less than the bloated U.S.-version Lexus. It is such a shame that the U.S.-market version has a 215hp 3.0 liter six-cylinder, five-speed automatic tranny only, and costs over thirty grand. Think of the price another way: If the U.S.-market Lexus IS300 were sold in Japan at U.S. prices, it would currently cost Ľ4,400,000, give or take one or two percent. The one sitting in front of me, equipped as I would want it (the sports model with a manual transmission, plus the optional wheels and tires) costs Ľ2,600,000!!!

A message to the auto industry from me:
I don't want front-wheel drive. Stubborn, I admit, but still not a negotiable point. Swallow the fact that it isn't quite as cheap to produce, and give me a few rear-wheel drive options. I can live with a driveshaft tunnel; there are a few consumers out there who are not searching for the maximum interior space possible...just witness the sales success of the new VW Beetle. Another good plus of rear-wheel drive is that a longitudinal engine is easier and more accesible to work on...see, packaging doesn't always rule the day. What's that? Oh, I do have a few rear-wheel drive choices on the market? Yes, but if I wanted a BMW or a Miata, I would have bought one already. If I wanted a car that is trying desperately to be a Miata or a BMW in all but name, I would have bought a BMW or a Miata already. My ideal car is a small sedan or better yet, a small 2+2 coupe. Affordably priced, simple, entry-level, usable everyday sporty car with a real roof and a serious performance bent. And since this is my car, I want it small. What is a small car? Not much longer than 165 inches, not much wider than 60 inches, and around 1.5-liter four-cylinder engine. Despite what some older Americans may tell you, a 2.8 or 3.0-liter six-cylinder is not a small car. And I don't want it to be one of these cars that starts out as a 2000-pound 1.5-liter small car, and through a process of several "updates" and "improvements" becomes a 3000-pound 2.2-liter medium-sized car. A Suzuki Swift is a good example of a car that has remained true to it's original inception. A four-cylinder VW GTI is another example of a car that has remained small. The BMW 3-series is an excellent example of a car that has succumbed to excess over time. At least new Honda Civics aren't too heavy, but they have gotten bigger than the old Accords, for crying out loud! Next time you are in a parking lot, look around for Accords or Camrys. It shouldn't be hard to find a few to compare a 10-15 year old example to the newest ones...take a look at the growth...hideous! Size aside, the Mitsubishi Eclipse and Honda CRX/Del Sol are perfect examples of innocent sporty cars that the corporation decided should be spanked for being such rowdy kids, and molded into a good citizen adult everyone can like. If a car isn't too big or heavy, a 1.3-1.8 liter engine in a sporting state of tune should be enough to make it reasonably fast and fun to drive. In the Eighties, we had quite a few choices of cars in this size range. These days, engines are better than ever, but I am hard pressed to think of more than one or two cars that are still under 1.8 liters.

Four cylinder rear-wheel-drive cars on the market today: Let's see, there's the Miata, not a reasonable all-around car in the Pacific Northwest. The new Toyota MR2...ditto. Ummm....let's see....The Honda S2000...a lot of car at a lot of money, and once again, a convertible. (Why, oh why didn 't Honda follow up on the plans to make the new Integra a coupe on the S2000 platform? They would have gotten my vote for doing so...Instead we get the RSX, another bigger, blander, "more refined" more expensive...ugh!) Uhhh, I can't think of anything else...can you?

OK, OK....I know, I know, modern crash-safety standards and engine management systems make cars heavier. How to combat this? Give us some options we can use. Fight the heft by ditching all the useless stuff. No power accesories inside the car...I don't want power door locks, power windows, or power seats. Climate control?...save us all the weight and expense please. Gold trim does not interest me in any way. I don't need cruise control, sunroof, power steering, A/C, cupholders, drive-by-wire throttles, power mirrors, heated seats, etc. (This car is looking cheaper and cheaper to produce every minute.) Like I said, give us enthusiasts some options we could use...think along the lines of Dodge's ACR (American Club Racer) package on the Neon, or Honda's Integra Type R. Give us some swaybars, shocks...a handling package. A heated power moonroof? No thanks, how about a close-ratio gearbox instead? Or perhaps a choice of two final-drive ratios? Think limited-slip differential....OK? Look at any of Toyota's GT-S cars from the eighties for inspiration. (healthy twincam motor, LSD, shocks, springs, swaybars, close-ratio tranny, ventilated disc brakes, sports seats, lower final drive in a basic Corolla, FX16, Celica, etc.) Saving all this weight is a great way to get good performance, and light weight cars are more fun to drive. Light weight cars are usually simple, and simple, light cars usually make performance mods easy and noticeable. Don't believe that there are people who have these same values? Although they are FWD, look at the number of people who still choose older Civics or Rabbit GTI's to modify for performance and drive every day.

And please, make the options just that...options. I am particular about the way I want a car, and every time I have gone to peruse new cars lately, I come away thinking about how much modification I would have to do straight out of the box to get the car driveable. I am immensely frustrated by lack of build-to-order availability on new cars. I can understand that the dealer won't have every combination in stock, but when it isn't even available? Come on, get your poo in a pile...look at new Volvos for an example of how it should be done. Having a choice of two "packages" does not constitute options. What do you mean I have to get the leather seats to get a manual transmission? Oh, that's the "sports" package. No...I want manual windows, manual transmission, and cloth seats, and I am willing to wait several weeks. I want the alloy wheels, but not the power seats...and that doesn't exist either? I guess if you want to continue to miss my money, you can keep telling me that my combination doesn't exist and can't be built. If the dealer wants to try and convince me to take the one on the lot, that's the dealer's choice, but I won't buy a new car until the set of options I want is available somewhere, by some means other than buying two new cars and doing it myself.

Toyota almost got it right by bringing us the Altezza.
I took it upon myself to spearhead a letter writing/phone calling campaign to both Toyota and Lexus, locally and nationally, to express our interest in the Altezza. It was a valiant effort, but in the end, the time probably would have been better spent actually doing some work on my senior thesis. But no, the Lexus doesn't even come with a manual transmission yet, is bigger and heavier than an Altezza, but no more powerful, and is way out of the Integra/Celica/GTI/Focus sporty small car price bracket. And this is Lexus's car to appeal to the youth of America? They told me, they told the world, this is the car to get twenty-something men to buy a Lexus...the "daring sporty Lexus for a new generation of enthusiasts." I asked them, "Have you looked at my generation? Do you see what enthusiasts my age drive? They like four cylinders...they like manual transmissions...they like sub-2-liter cars." I guess no one was listening. Hello?......I guess no one is listening. (If anyone at BMW sees this, please make the sub $20K, sub 2400-pound, RWD 1-series a reality...I will buy it!)

Oh well...just think how many Corolla GT-S's I could buy and fix up for 17-20 thousand dollars! Or what sort of Lotus Cortina I could buy....or a nice Alfa Romeo GTV. Anyone seen a FIAT Abarth 131 for sale lately? I bet there are some nice BMW 2002tii's, Datsun 510s, and Mazda RX-7 GSL-SEs out there in that price range....:-) Etc, etc.

What is Special About the AE86?
Let's examine what makes a car fun to drive. Balance, responsiveness, light weight, and a communicative chassis are the most important factors in making a car that is enjoyable to drive. You want a car that does what you tell it to do, and in turn tells you what it is doing. You want a car that involves you in driving rather than distancing you from it. Having a car that is fast and powerful can make driving fun too, but these aren't the qualities at the top of my list. Why drive a less-involving car at over 100, when I can be enjoying myself more in an involving car at 80? I am continually reminded of Peter Egan's article where he says the fastest he has ever driven in his life was the time he did 85 in an Autin-Healey Sprite. :-) Balance, when applied to the description of a fairly modern street car, basically means that the handling of the car isn't dominated by massive amount of understeer. :-)
Responsiveness encompasses several different aspects of the vehicle: it combines the balance discussed above with a free-revving engine, quick steering, precise and positive shifting, quick turn-in, and a car that is willing to make fairly immediate direction changes. Drive an AE86 for a while, then get back in a less-responsive car. You will soon find yourself saying, "But I wanted to be _here_ right now, not over there, somewhere sometime after that!" My dislike for turbos stems from a desire for the most responsive, rev-happy motor possible...I have driven a few very quick-spooling, nearly-invisible turbo cars, but they still cannot compare to the rewarding excitement of keeping an NA car on the boil, and the sound, and the linear, always growing power curve that really makes you work for that top-end rush.
A lighter car is going to be more responsive than a similar heavier car. Colin Chapman, the founder, head engineer, and visionary at Lotus Cars once said, "Simplify...then add lightness." Lightening a car improves all aspects of performance: Better cornering, faster transitions and direction changes, better acceleration, better braking, and better fuel economy. (An added benefit is a car that can more easily avoid an accident, and one which causes less damage when it does hit something.)
A large part of my driving enjoyment comes from having a car that sounds nice (hence my dislike for most V6s), and here the AE86 delivers also. I love the sound of a 4AG...somewhat reminiscent of a Cosworth BDA.
Part of the reason I like the AE86 so much is that it has these qualities straight out of the box, and they can be amplified somewhat through modifications. There is no denying that a stock or close to stock AE86 is a joy to drive. Forget how fast you are going and ask, "How fast do I feel like I am going?" Pretty soon you've answered the question by double clutching just for fun, laughing as you carry a lot of speed into a turn. Trust me, however silly, unbelieveable, or humble a written description may look on paper, the AE86 is more than a sum of it's parts, and is more fun to drive than you might think.

E-Mail Me
sidewaystoyota at hotmail dot com
Make AE86 Webpage your subject or I will delete your mail! Sorry, but spammers have forced me.

Back to the Main Page