Just imagine that Porsche decided to release an affordable, lightweight sports car with a 4-cylinder boxer engine...
Imagine if Porsche created a cheap 2+2 sports car. A sports car in the purest sense: 1,275kg, naturally aspirated 2-litre boxer engine with a 7,500rpm redline, lowest centre of gravity of any mass produced car, drivers legs straight out to the pedals, classic coupe shape, looks great in any colour but best in radiant red or blue.
The steering would be sharp as a blade, the cockpit compact but purposeful, the rear seats unusable for anything other than putting a weekend bag on, the engine would sound good, the rear wheels would grip the road up to a certain point and thereafter would allow a limited degree of slip.
Being a Porsche it would have some luxuries: heated seats, satnav, leather and suede, Bluetooth, cruise control.
Sadly Porsche won't give us such a car. The brand is too valuable to do such a thing. The interior materials would have to be too naff for Porsche, the buttons, switches and tactile surfaces would have to be of a lower quality than Porsche expects. It would cheapen the brand.
Thank goodness, then, for Toyota and its £25,000 GT86 which is all of the above.
Toyota doesn't care that the satnav and info screen looks a bit cheap. It works perfectly, it's functional, it's mass market. Same goes for the interior, although the seats and steering wheel are rather fabulous - and to be honest the plastics and leathers are better than you would expect from the world's second largest car company.
The driving experience, though, is pure Porsche - without the various acronyms (PASM, PSM, you get my drift).
Porsche did once sell such a car, it was the 924 which transmogrified into the 944 and the 968. Front engined, classic coupe shape, 2+2. But its engine was an inline-4, not a boxer.
There we go, the Toyota GT86, more Porsche-like than a Porsche.
I've got a Toyota GT86 for a week. Expect more photos, reports and videos across Speedmonkey's various social media channels.
By Matt Hubbard
