FUNBOY THREE

Toyota has just revamped its entry-level sports coupe to create the GR86, but how does it stack up against Mazda's evergreen MX-5 and Alpine's formidable A110 when it comes to delivering pure driving fun?

-  STEVE SUTCLIFFE

BEFORE YOU CONCLUDE THAT WE'VE LOST THE PLOT BY lining up a near-60-grand mid-engined sports car from France with a pair of front-engined wannabes from Japan that cost half as much and aren't anywhere near as quick, consider this: when Toyota launched the GT86 in 2012 it all but redefined the way we think about so-called driver's cars. At a stroke, the rear-drive but not very grippy, not especially potent GT86 underlined the notion that speed in itself is not the holy grail when it comes to pure driver enjoyment, and we've celebrated its existence ever since.

Which is why the prospect of a faster, meaner, leaner GT86 can't help but grab our attention ten years and one global pandemic later. It also explains why the traditional parameters of price, power, size and specification tend to get thrown out of the window when it comes to choosing the right opposition to pit against the new 2.4-litre, 231bhp, £29,995 GR86.

In any case, a good sports car is a good sports car, no matter how much it might cost or how little power it may have. So bring it on, as they say, because if our initial impressions of the GR86 are accurate, this is a car that's quite happy to take on all comers, in all shapes and sizes, and at almost any price. Hence the reason we've lined it up beside one of our favourite mid-engined sports cars this side of £100k, the breathtakingly lovely Alpine A110 GT, as well as the somewhat more predictable Mazda MX-5 2.0 GT Sport Tech, a textbook front-engined, rear-drive, open-top two-seater that costs just £1865 more than the Toyota.

And they are all, without question, sports cars.