A newly revealed concept car
Back in 2012, there was much buzz surrounding what was then called the Scion FR-S. The nimble and affordable rear-wheel-drive coupe was a breath of fresh air in a market that hadn’t seen a lot of activity in the sports car
However, a compact wagon the size of an FR-S sounds immensely cool. Toyota’s description of the X86D even says an all-wheel-drive drivetrain was part of the plan. AWD or not, it would have benefited from the well-balanced front-engined, rear-drive-biased layout of the 86, as well as its low-profile flat-four engine.
The concept made it to the full-size model stage, which is not insignificant. That means it passed the 2D paper or digital illustration and 1:4 scale model phases. The look deviates quite significantly from the FR-S, with a dramatically curved rear window on the hatch.
The X86D was designed at Calty, which Toyota founded in 1973. Nowadays nearly every major automaker has a studio in Southern California, but Toyota’s was the first, founded to study drivers’ habits in the American (or, arguably, global) heart of car culture. Production cars that have emerged from Calty include the 1979 Celica, the stunning Lexus SC, and the 2024 Tacoma.
The Scion FR-S was subsequently renamed the 86 when the Scion brand was killed off, and then renamed the GR86