I think you're missing the point a little.
It's a front engined, rear driven car with a limited slip differential (and the option of a mechanical two way diff if you fancy), with little weight and perfect balance. It's not about toys, options, gadgets, driver aids, comfort or travelling distance. It's a car focussing on being an engaging and fun drive.
The characteristics of the car are neutral from the factory, which naturally means a tendency to oversteer. The BMW will be set up to understeer as this is safer. In terms of chassis design and geo setup, toyota have shown immensely large testicles doing this, what with all the health and safety we are subject to these days. Check out Chris Harris on Cars - he has a review of the GT86.
The BMW you compare it to is a great car. Fantastic car. There is no question about it. It's not quite the same though, it has more power, more weight, more toys, more gadgets and it will pretty much be impossible to crash it unless you hit a patch of particularly fresh diesel spill. It will be comfortable, you could do an long journey effortlessly in it and so on. But it simply will not be as fun to throw around and to drive. I doubt it even has a locking diff, so to get any power induced oversteer you would have to be driving dangerously hard.
It's a real shame toyota aren't going to release the stripped back version over here - they are doing on in japan with no stereo, steel wheels and beer crates for seats for about tree fiddy, sadly we get the full featured versions which a little birdie tells me will be available from around 23.5k when it comes down to the crunch.
It's a front engined, rear driven car with a limited slip differential (and the option of a mechanical two way diff if you fancy), with little weight and perfect balance. It's not about toys, options, gadgets, driver aids, comfort or travelling distance. It's a car focussing on being an engaging and fun drive.
The characteristics of the car are neutral from the factory, which naturally means a tendency to oversteer. The BMW will be set up to understeer as this is safer. In terms of chassis design and geo setup, toyota have shown immensely large testicles doing this, what with all the health and safety we are subject to these days. Check out Chris Harris on Cars - he has a review of the GT86.
The BMW you compare it to is a great car. Fantastic car. There is no question about it. It's not quite the same though, it has more power, more weight, more toys, more gadgets and it will pretty much be impossible to crash it unless you hit a patch of particularly fresh diesel spill. It will be comfortable, you could do an long journey effortlessly in it and so on. But it simply will not be as fun to throw around and to drive. I doubt it even has a locking diff, so to get any power induced oversteer you would have to be driving dangerously hard.
It's a real shame toyota aren't going to release the stripped back version over here - they are doing on in japan with no stereo, steel wheels and beer crates for seats for about tree fiddy, sadly we get the full featured versions which a little birdie tells me will be available from around 23.5k when it comes down to the crunch.
