GR86 outside, GR Corolla inside

Toyota is lining up something special for this year’s SEMA show in Las Vegas. They will do what Subaru has yet to do with the BRZ – they’re making a GR86 with a turbocharged engine and all-wheel-drive.

That’s right. Larry Chen was able to sneak in at Evasive Motorsports – the tuner shop that Toyota has tapped to build the car. And guess what, the Toyota GR86 is getting the running gear of the GR Corolla, complete with the GR-Four AWD system, the 1.6-liter, three-cylinder turbo, and the six-speed manual gearbox.

Evasive Motorsports is no stranger to these drivetrain swaps. In recent memory, they managed to fit in a Honda Civic Type R FK8 engine to power a rear-wheel-drive Honda S2000 that they aptly called the S2000R.

This time, according to Evasive Motorsports’ Mike Chang, Toyota wanted to pay homage to its iconic rally cars such as the Celica GT-Four from the 90s Group A era. So now, they chose the GR86 to be the modern interpretation of that rally machine.

Currently, Evasive Motorsports and Eimer Engineering are making modifications to the chassis of the GR86 to fit the GR Corolla’s drivetrain, specifically to accommodate the additional space needed for the front driveshafts to clear. For now, they have yet to show a mock-up of what the finished product could look like, along with the power figures for the GR86 AWD.

As much as we want to hype up what could possibly be done to the GR86 in the future, the GR86 build would only be a one-off for the SEMA show in November. Honestly, we can’t wait to see the final product, especially if it comes in the iconic Castrol colors.

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