For a while, Toyota seemed unstoppable, with it’s cars garnering quality accolades and the sales increasing to a point where it has overtook General Motors as the world’s largest automaker.

Toyota President Akio Toyoda has made some interesting comments lately, saying that Toyota is in a state of decline and needs to excitement to help pull them out of it. Is the sky falling? No, but there are things that need to be fixed.

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Toyota is in desperate need of excitement and design injected into it’s products. Toyota’s effort to connect with a younger demographic through Scion hasn’t fared very well (or as well as the company hoped). The FT-86 is the company’s attempt to do that for the Toyota brand.

The FT-86 was designed at Toyota’s  European Development (ED2) facility in France. While not groundbreaking  (as some would seem to claim) the car and it’s design are a big step forward for Toyota.

I like the view from the rear is the best – there’s no doubt this is one of the best looking Toyotas in years. The inside I like a lot, with a unique control area that is canted toward the driver. Hopefully we’ll see some of this design in the production car.

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For quite some time, we’ve been hearing about how Toyota and Subaru would be collaborating on a sports car. The FT-86 is a result of those rumors. Apparently, Subaru will be getting it’s own version of the car as well. The real story with the FT-86 has to do with the specifications.

The FT-86 is powered not by a Toyota engine, but by Subaru’s 2.0L “Boxer” engine (WRX, anyone?). With that engine, power to the rear wheels and an asking price of around $20,000, the FT-86′s specifications read like a wish list of what many have been asking for.

With the FT-86, it is Toyota’s aim to get a younger demographic to the brand. There’s a lot of goodwill for Toyota,  and I could see the FT-86 being quite successful, if they execute it right.

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