The Toyota GR86 Hakone Is for the Purist on a Budget: Video Review
I
owned a 2023 BRZ
for 16 months and found it to be one of the most pleasurable ownership experiences I've ever had. And in asking for the new, lightly updated 2025 GR86 Hakone, I wanted to see how one of the only true sports cars on the market has evolved since my ownership.
The Hakone gets the typical Performance Pack upgrades: Brembo big brakes all around, and Sachs dampers on all four corners versus the BRZ tS' front Hitachi units. While there are no powertrain upgrades, it does get a stunning colorway of Ridge Green, gold wheels, and tan interior accents. Completing the effect are a steering and throttle recalibration, which all 2025 GR86s get.
For our latest YouTube video, I took a close look at how the world around the GR86 has changed since its debut in 2022, and evaluated Toyota's updates versus the first versions of the car. The GR86 might be the most balanced sports car experience you can buy new. To find out the reasons why, you'll just have to watch the video above.
More on the GR86
The 2026 Toyota GR86 Yuzu Edition Has Scion Vibes
Toyota Built the AWD GR86 Rally Car of Our Dreams
Get the best news, reviews, columns, and more delivered straight to your inbox, daily.
back
Sign up
For more information, read our
Privacy Policy
and
Terms of Use
.
Share this Story
X
Got a tip for us? Email:
tips@motor1.com
Join the conversation
(
)
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
CNBC
5 hours ago
- CNBC
Cramer's Lightning Round: 'I'm going to take a pass on Toyota'
Toyota: "I'm going to take a pass on Toyota only because it just went up so much." Advance Auto Parts: "I'm going to say no to Advanced Auto Parts because I'm going to say yes to AutoZone." Fortinet: "No, we don't want Fortinet." UGI: "I'll be a buyer of the stock, most certainly. Click here to download Jim Cramer's Guide to Investing at no cost to help you build long-term wealth and invest
Chicago Tribune
7 hours ago
- Chicago Tribune
Column: Japan trade deal is more than meets the eye
The Trump administration has reached an important economic agreement with Japan. International trade and finance today are complicated, and therefore, agreements can be difficult to sum up briefly. In this case, there is also significant background, somewhat different from our history with Europe, that bears in important ways on the specifics of the accord. Japan has committed to provide $550 billion in new funding to the United States in the form of investment, loans and loan guarantees. President Donald Trump is justified in declaring that the agreement represents a major victory for his approach of negotiating concessions from other nations, especially major partners in Asia and Europe. However, the agreement is also precisely in line with the long-term strategy of Japan to sidestep U.S. restrictions on direct imports by emphasizing investment in our country. This dates from the Reagan administration, years when trade and other frictions between Tokyo and Washington were at a peak. Reagan officials pressed their counterparts in Japan to accept what were termed 'voluntary export agreements,' meaning in fact a ceiling on exports to the U.S. Automobiles were a high priority, reflecting the fact that the traditional Big Three U.S. auto manufacturers — American Motors (and successor Chrysler), Ford and GM — were suffering from growing, increasingly successful competition from Japan and also Europe. Nissan, Toyota, Fiat, Volkswagen and other foreign firms were making great inroads in North America. Japanese car manufacturers responded to the new, significant challenge represented by the U.S. voluntary export agreements in two ways. First, their export profiles were changed. Emphasis on compact cars was shifted to a new emphasis on larger, more luxurious models. Toyota's transformation is especially striking in this regard. Second, tremendous new emphasis was given to building manufacturing facilities within the United States. The second dimension effectively embedded foreign manufacturers in the U.S, establishing a strategic position that would greatly benefit foreign vehicle manufacturers over the long term. President Trump has a strong personal interest in, indeed fascination with, traditional economic tariffs. However, beginning with the Bretton Woods institutions, initially defined by the Allied powers at a New Hampshire conference in 1944, such trade tariffs have become generally regulated and stabilized at relatively low levels. Significant tariff wars, along with competitive currency devaluations, were rightly viewed as major contributing factors to interwar economic dislocations, capped by the Great Depression. This, in turn spawned totalitarian dictatorships and led to World War II. The creation of the United Nations in 1945 institutionalized efforts to maintain greater international stability. The UN has been an umbrella for the Bretton Woods institutions – the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), now the World Trade Organization (WTO), along with the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. The end of the Cold War permitted the UN family of institutions to become truly global. The rise of China, and serious competition with the United States that encompasses ideological and military as well as economic dimensions, places a premium on close, positive cooperation with other Asia powers. Japan along with India and South Korea, and the special case of Taiwan, are all lynchpin components important to the containment effort. Farsighted U.S. foreign policies since World War II created durable ties with economically and militarily significant nations in East and South Asia. The nations cited are also today functioning democracies. Japan's shrewd, flexible adjustment to changing U.S. political winds over the long term is also fundamentally important.
Yahoo
10 hours ago
- Yahoo
‘Flying Car' Industry Taxis Toward Takeoff
'We wanted flying cars; instead, we got 140 characters,' venture capitalist Peter Thiel, himself an early Facebook investor and thus key financier of the first social media age, quipped in 2013. Since his remark, the character limit for posts on Twitter — rechristened X under Thiel's fellow PayPal mafia barone Elon Musk — has climbed to 280 (or 25,000 for paid subscribers). As for cars, they're still not flying. A US-based startup, backed by Japan's Toyota, and a freshly capitalized initiative in China could change that as soon as next year. READ ALSO: Trump's 'Biggest Deal Ever' With EU Prompts Yawn From Wall Street and Can Tesla and Samsung Find Salvation in Each Other? Shares to the Sky 'Flying car' is a colloquial term best associated with futures imagined by sci-fi filmmakers. But outside the dystopian cityscapes of Blade Runner or The Fifth Element, here on Earth, they go by a much wonkier industry term: electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) craft. There's also no futuristic hovering technology — current eVTOLs in development by Santa Cruz-based, Toyota-backed Joby Aviation and Chinese carmaker XPeng get off the ground with old-fashioned propeller and rotor technology. In both cases, that has been more than enough to send their shares into liftoff: Joby, which already has a small fleet of air taxis conducting test runs, last week announced plans to expand its California facility to build 24 of its eVTOL craft per year. It also plans to pursue commercialization by seeking certification from the Federal Aviation Administration and expand production to an Ohio facility where it hopes to mass-produce as many as 500 crafts every year. Propping up the effort is 22% shareholder Toyota, which has invested roughly $900 million in the publicly traded startup (shares are up 122% this year). And then there's Xpeng Aeroht, Xpeng's flying car division, which earlier this month said it secured $250 million in Series B funding to expedite the mass production of its Land Aircraft Carrier, a Cybertruck-resembling all-terrain vehicle with a detachable, helicopter-like air module. Xpeng Aeroht is planning mass production of the vehicle, commencing next year in Guangzhou, with a roughly $280,000 price tag and a facility with a projected annual capacity of 10,000 units. Its parent company's shares are up 59% this year. Toyota, meanwhile, has expanded its exposure to the segment as another startup with its backing, Japan-based SkyDrive, obtained initial certification for an eVTOL earlier this year, which could eventually lead to commercialization. The barriers to adoption vary, depending on the market. For example, Xpeng Aeroht produces a smaller eVTOL, the X2, which is technically for sale in Australia, but regulatory uncertainty means using one legally may be at least a year away (and require a pilot's license). Dubai's the Limit: Joby had initially targeted offering commercial passenger services in Dubai, where Xpeng Aeroht tested an eVTOL back in 2022, by the end of this year. That timeline has been bumped to early 2026, seven years after Blade Runner but well ahead of The Fifth Element's setting in the 23rd century. This post first appeared on The Daily Upside. To receive delivering razor sharp analysis and perspective on all things finance, economics, and markets, subscribe to our free The Daily Upside newsletter. Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
