Return of the Hachiroku! Toyota's small-body FR Sports Car, the FT-86 Concept

Let it be known to those that were not aware - I am a total car nerd. And as a total car nerd who lives in Tokyo and can read Japanese, I've been really excited lately to hear that there are a few companies that are bucking the current trend of making bland, economical cars and going balls out - specifically, Toyota and Subaru. I've been busy with work lately and unfortunately haven't been able to make it to this year's Tokyo Motor Show to see this car in person, but rest assured I shall make it before next Wednesday when the show closes. I have, however, been doing some reading - namely this article over at nikkei trendy and the last couple issues of Best Car, a major Japanese car mag that's highlighted the Toyota-Subaru combined effort with some quality information.

Now here I'll focus mainly on what I've heard about the Toyota version, which was confirmed at the TMS to be slated for Fall 2011 sale worldwide: in Japan (development name: 086A), North America (087A) and Europe (088A). The basic idea? A throwback to the old AE86 (the hachi-roku) - a lightweight, relatively inexpensive rear-wheel drive car that's fun to toss around turns. Toyota execs and designers alike are on record as saying that they are more focused on appealing to those who remember the original hachi-roku than making a car for young drivers, and are pricing it "such that the average working man can afford one." And how close have they come to this goal? Well, here's what they've got thus far:

The dimensions are a length of 4160mm (162.5 in.), width of 1760mm (68.75 in.) and height of 1260mm (49.2 in.) making it a full 20mm shorter than the original 86, but its wheelbase of 2570mm (100.4 in.) is a full 170mm more than the original's 2400mm. Also, the extra 135mm of width should make it quite a bit more stable as well. Curb weight will be around 1200kg (2640 lbs.). Some of the top brass are saying they want to make it the same length as the original, so don't be surprised if the production model is 4180mm. The body seen is one of four options being debated, this one designed by the ED2 group in southern France - all designs are said to have the dimensions set to the above specifications. Personally, I think the current design looks to have borrowed a bit from the hybrid concept body they displayed at the TMS two years ago, but this looks much cleaner.

Now as far as the powertrain goes, this project really got its start 2 years ago when Toyota acquired a closer relationship with Subaru, purchasing a 9% share in Subaru's parent company FHI from GM, and then upping their share to 16% last year. The designers were very interested in the lower center of gravity that the boxer engine could provide, and went to work right away once they got tinkering rights. What they have eventually come up with is said to be a significantly improved upon naturally aspirated EJ20-based engine, with direct injection and an idling stop added among other things to help improve both fuel economy and emissions without sacrificing the almighty bottom line that is the dyno output. This engine mated to a 6MT with a classic 3-pedal cockpit layout (no paddle-shifting for the hachi-roku!!) will deliver 200 hp at 7200rpm and 21.0 kgm (152ft-lbs.) of torque over a wide and low range of 2400-4400 rpms to the rear wheels (for the Toyota version). All the tweaks have kept a very respectable estimated 15-16 km/l (35-38 mpg) fuel estimate to go along with the power. This is no slouch by any means, making the the power-to-weight ratio slightly higher than that of the legendary hachi-roku at 1:6 (FT-86) compared to 1:7.15 (AE86).

Now last but not least comes the price tag: up to this point they've been sticking with their rather ambiguous statement of "affordable for the average working man", which originally was thought to mean around 2.0M yen (roughly $20,000 US) in keeping with the original. As development has moved along this number has crept up to 2.5M, with some thinking it might even wind up being more than that when all is said and done. Toyota however, in it's determination to make this an affordable sports car in the spirit of the project, is now apparently considering a base model in the range of 2.3 - 2.5M yen (again roughly $23,000-25,000 USD), with options galore.

The developers are sticking to saying that what you see at the TMS is still a rough idea of what will eventually be on sale, but this concept car is not rough around the edges at all. I have no idea what the other 3 designs they're contemplating are, but speculation is that they are being worked on by Toyota here in Tokyo and the CALTY offices in southern California, and possibly another Italian design factory. I personally have no doubt that this car will be an overwhelming success once released, but Toyota is saying that they are more concerned about making a car that reminds people what fun behind the wheel is supposed to mean than sales figures. To show these guys know how to have fun, they say that they are even drifting these prototypes on the track and have figured out what they believe to be the perfect weight distribution ratio for drifting - which they say in no way should be confused with meaning a 50:50 distribution like the Mazda RX-8. It certainly sounds like they have their shit straight to me!

Now I also have information I shall eventually share about the Subaru end of the project (yes, there are a fair bit of differences), and also some information about the Honda CR-Z hybrid FF-sports car... although really the only reason I would have to share that would be to show how much better the FT-86 is than it. ;P

I'll also definitely be giving an update after hitting up the show myself, if nothing else for the pictures. All pictures here were taken from the Nikkei Trendy article referenced above and can be seen in their original sizes by following the link.

"Cash for Clunkers"? Pfft... get a load of Japanese shaken

Steven Levitt over at freakonomics brought up the US "Cash for Clunkers" program again, which just passed the US House of Representatives. Before details were released, he was originally speculating that they would make it so cars over a certain age would be available for a trade-in of $3,000-4,000 or so in an effort to get older, dirtier cars off the roads and replace them with more fuel-efficient models. According to the article, the final details of the plan are thus:

Under the plan, owners of cars and trucks that get less than 18 m.p.g. could get a voucher of $3,500 to $4,500 for a new vehicle, depending on the mileage of the new model.

The plan does have several hurdles that will keep some potential buyers on the sidelines. The clunker being traded in will be crushed or recycled, meaning it will have no trade-in value beyond the voucher. Of the 25 million vehicles estimated to qualify for the voucher, most will be trucks: even 15 years ago, only five models of midsize sedans managed just 18 m.p.g.

To ensure the vehicles being crushed are actually coming off the road rather than cinder blocks, the trade-ins have to have been registered and insured for at least the past year.

So they settled on an mpg rating as opposed to a year rating to focus on removing foreign oil influence as opposed to lowering emissions directly. If, however, they did decide to try for lowering emissions, they could look no further than Japan for a plan as they have a great plan for doing so. It's expensive for consumers, but that's part of the point - giving negative incentives to owning cars so people will look into the alternatives and not be so wasteful. (This would of course need to be supplimented with such alternatives to be effective, but these could be made if the people wanted it badly enough.)

First off, most know that gas is more expensive in Japan than it is in the US, but then that's true for pretty much the rest of 1st-world countries as well. I don't have a car anymore so don't really look too closely, but last time I noticed regular gas was around 120JPY/liter ($4.62/gallon at today's exchange rates) out here - it was pushing on 200JPY/liter (~$7.50/gallon) back when Americans were complaining about $4-5/gallon.

But gas isn't the real expense of having a car out here, it's only a very small part. Just to get a license in Japan you're forced to go spend about 300,000JPY on driving school lessons (note: transfer of foreign license is exempt of this). And if you buy your own car you have to have proof of a place to park it, which unless you live way out in the country you're definitely going to have to pay for and could run you several 10,000s of yen a month, especially if you're around Tokyo. Also, one of the better parts of Japan's temporary economic stimulus package has made it so that you can use the highways to get anywhere for only 1000JPY, but all Japanese highways are tolled. Just to give you an idea of the normal rates, it usually costs give or take 10,000JPY to go from Tokyo to Sendai one-way, which will take you 365km and roughly 5 hours. A ticket on the shinkansen meanwhile will cost you about the same and get there in 2-2.5 hours, less than half the time.

Then there's the major cost in getting a car out here - the shaken system ("shah-ken"), which is basically a system requiring you to get your car inspected every 1-3 years depending on age and type of the vehicle. New passenger vehicles don't need to be inspected for 3 years, then after that they need inspection every 2 years. The inspection itself will cost you anywhere between 50,000~100,000 with any repairs deemed necessary on top of that, including scheduled maintenance items like tires, timing belts, clutches, etc. Most anywhere you take your car they will make you replace something, so normal costs to expect could be anywhere from the 60~80K JPY range for kei-cars to more like 100~200K for higher end cars (my '00 WRX cost about 150K).

This is why used vehicles depreciate so fast in Japan, and also why you don't see all that many cars that are more than 10-15 years old... not too many people are willing to spend more than the car's worth every 2 years just to keep it on the road, and for a lot of cars the shaken cost exceeds selling value after about 10-15 years or so. Older cars that aren't wanted are either exported to poorer countries that can still use them or crushed. This makes it almost impossible to find classic Japanese cars, and puts the price of those you do find prohibitively expensive for most. On the flip side, this means that most cars in Japan, including the older ones, are normally kept in spectacular running order - no clunkers. Also, because of the gas prices and highway costs, along with the craptacular traffic in urban centers like Tokyo, most people consider the spectacular train system a great alternative for long trips and commutes, opting out of using the car for long distances and keeping the odometer reading relatively low as well.

Now bringing us full circle, the consequence of this is cars in better shape due to regular and expensive inspections, meaning better gas mileage and lower emissions. Older cars are just as expensive to hold onto as newer ones, so newer cars with even lower emissions are the norm. As a corollary, newer cars mean that people have to buy cars more often, further feeding the economy (normally). Also due to the higher gas prices and highway costs, people are more likely to buy more efficient cars in the first place... if they decide to buy one at all. I'm sure if the American system took this as its model, well first off you'd have a bunch of pissed off Americans, but you'd certainly cut emissions and raise fuel efficiency.

In closing, this is why I do not own a car in Japan. The end.

Little red horsies

Hey, look what showed up at work 2 days ago! Forgive the quality of the photos as they were taken with the camera phone.

Also, the other day I was pretty close to buying a '95 Skyline GT-R, but we decided against it because of a nice puddle of oil dripping from the engine. I will have one soon enough though.

Tokyo Motor Show 2007

Ok... I take it back.

You may remember that a few months ago I mentioned I was holding out to see the rally version to make my final judgment call on the new Impreza, and I'm just oh so pleased as peaches that I did! The base model is still butt-ass fugly, which for those of you keeping score makes it as fugly as two asses, but they most indubitably made up for it with the rally car. I saw it this past weekend at... *drum roll*... the Tokyo Motor Show!

Among the attractions and in addition to the new STi and new Suburu STi Rally Car, I saw the new GT-R (technically not a Skyline anymore), the new Toyota FT-HS (successor to the Supra, and a hybrid), the new Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution X (boring styling, but fast nonetheless), the new Suzuki Rally Car (they've been out of the game quite a while), and booth girls!!! Tons of booth girls! I hear they have a test drive section and some other stuff, but I didn't get around to checking that out. Back to the girls though...


One note of contention at essentially every Tokyo Motor Show is which booth has the best girls - I hear there are myriad magazine articles debating this very point to death. Now believe you me I looked long and hard, and although Suzuki and Subaru had some good contenders my hat goes off to the girls at Mitsubishi. This picture is a thing of beauty... legs as far as the eyes can see.

For more pictures, check out the flickr account on the right.

Oh and as a little note to all those that are paying attention - I'll be in town for the holidays!! Dates TBA shortly, but it'll be basically from Christmas to January 5th. EMAIL ME NOW!!! so we can plan stuff - I'll be spending plenty of time with the fam, but I'm definitely interested in seeing everyone else and doing something fun for New Year's. Hard to believe, but it's actually been a year and a half...

This just in: the new Impreza is ugly.

Oh, it's true. Don't believe me? Allow me to present exhibit A:

More crappy pictures here

So the other day I saw what appears to be the newest evolution of one of my favorite cars, the Subaru Impreza. All I have to say is I hope they have some awesome body altering kits, because this thing is about as attractive as a pug... or maybe even this dog. Ok ok, maybe that's a little harsh, but I really don't like it.

The back on the wagon in particular is hideous, while the front is just... blah. Very nondescript. You could've told me it was a Corolla and I would've believed it. I'll have to see what the rally team does with the car though as if anyone can make it look good they can. And if they can't? Well, luckily I probably won't be in the market to get another car for a few years, so maybe that'll give them time to sort things out. Or maybe I'll just get an Audi or something.