Over the past six months, there has been so much buzz from the local tuner community over the arrival of the Toyota GT 86 model here in North America.  Well, we get it since it has been a while since Toyota sold a cool and sporty coupe here.  However, has irony has it, in the US and Canada it is actually badged under Toyota’s Scion nameplate as the Scion FR-S.  Whereas, outside North America it goes by the name Toyota 86 and in Europe it is called Toyota GT 86. Developed as a joint project between Subaru and Toyota it features a 2.0 liter boxer engine, 6 speed manual or automatic transmission, rear-wheel drive and 2+2 seating.

The Subaru version is called the Subaru BRZ and mainly differs in its front end, where the grille has a hexagonal shape versus an inverted trapezoid in the Toyota and Scion. The name of the Scion model of “FR-S” refers to the following Front-engine, Rear-wheel drive and Sport. The “86” number refers to the Toyota AE86, an infamously regarded model series among car enthusiasts of rear-wheel drive sports coupes and hatchbacks. Badged and sold as the Toyota Sprinter Trueno and Toyota Corolla Levin from 1983 to 1987 these models were the last rear-wheel drive sports coupes built by Toyota until the release of the new 86.

A great deal of the hype around these new model comes from the immense global marketing push of both Toyota and Subaru and as always here at RedlineNorth we like to observe how products are marketed in different regions.  Well, take a look at this online video ad that has garnered a ton of viral traffic both good and bad – it shows one perspective of how your wife may react to you the purchase of the new Scion FR-S.  Not sure it is going to win any political correctness awards but it sure gets the message across.

We really appreciate the ad folks pushing the boundaries as it makes for great entertainment and we hope the car can live up to all this hype. Time will tell.