The Toyota GR86 Is About To Get Even Better

The Toyota GR86 is a great car, as CT’s Ryan Hirons recently found out after getting to spend three months with one. The jammy bastard. Anyway, this is all moot for those of us in Europe, where the car has already been dropped after a depressingly tiny sales run curtailed by new crash regulations.

Just to rub some salt in this particular wound, Toyota has unveiled a series of updates for the GR86, which lives on in various other markets. Very few people have had any issues with the way the little rear-drive coupe drives, but that hasn’t stopped Toyota from chasing some further improvements.

The world of American car model years still continues to baffle us, as all these changes are being announced now for the 2025 GR86. It gets retuned shocks, which have apparently further sharpened up the already excellent handling alongside a rework of the electric power steering.

A revised throttle map has been introduced with the explicit purpose of making blips during heel-and-toe downshifts easier, while the engine’s torque map has been tweaked for a more direct and linear throttle response.

The engine itself – a 2.4-litre naturally-aspirated boxer four making 228bhp and 184lb ft of torque – remains unchanged, as does the choice of six-speed manual or automatic gearboxes. We’d imagine this suite of changes will soon make their way onto the Subaru BRZ, too.

All well and good, but we might be more taken with the new GR86 Hakone Edition. This special edition is named for the Hakone Turnpike, a legendary Japanese mountain road that’s featured heavily in the Initial D franchise (although in Japan, it’ll just be called the Ridge Green Edition). It’s available exclusively in the extremely Instagram-friendly combination of Ridge Green with 18-inch wheels in satin bronze. It also gets a larger rear ducktail spoiler.

Inside, the Hakone gets sports seats finished in black Ultrasuede with tan leather trimmings and a special bronze-accented gearknob. There is, of course, a special edition plaque too. Finally, it gets the GR86’s Performance Pack as standard, which brings beefier Brembo brakes and nitrogen-and-oil-filled Sachs dampers.

Effectively, then, it’s just a splash of green paint with bits of bronze and tan – but when has that ever been a bad thing? 860 Hakones will be sold in the USA, with a further 200 Ridge Green Editions bound for Japan. We’ll be looking at both markets with much jealousy at this one.