Scion FR-S

Scion FR-S
Scion FR-S
Scion FR-S
Scion FR-S
Scion FR-S
Scion FR-S
The U.S.-market sister ship to the Subaru BRZ, the Scion FR-S, will go on sale this spring. It is an unusual car for parent company Toyota, or at least the Toyota of late. Before the creation of the FR-S, Akio Toyoda (president of Toyota and grandson of the company’s founder) asked himself, “Where is the passion in our lineup? I want to build a sports car.”

The Scion FR-S is that sports car. (It also will be sold across the globe as the Toyota GT 86 or simply 86.) Much has been made about the collaboration with Subaru. Toyota claims credit for the car’s existence and the idea itself, which is in direct opposition to what Subaru told us. Fight! Fight! Toyota says chief engineer Tetsuya Tada’s original concept called for a front-engined sports car with rear-wheel drive. Inspired by the rear-drive Corolla of the ’80s that became the darling of drifters, the new sports car would be light, agile, and affordable. After some internal resistance within Toyota and Subaru, a prototype was built in late 2007 using a Subaru flat-four and rear-wheel drive. The prototype changed minds; by early 2008, a sports-car program was born.