00:00Hi there, I'm Johnny Lieberman. You're watching Motor Trend. I'm in downtown Los Angeles in little
00:06Tokyo with a very special Hachi Roku. It's the only one in the world like it. And you'll be
00:12saying, oh yes, the headlights, they don't pop up. Well, no, actually, there was always a choice of
00:17either in Japan. You had the Trueno, which was the pop-up lights, and we got it as the Toyota
00:22Corolla GTS. Or you had this one, the Levin, which had the fixed headlights. Trueno and Levin,
00:28and it turns out that in Middle English, they mean thunder and lightning. But let's be honest,
00:33we all like the 4A GE motor, but it never really had any thunder or lightning. This one, however,
00:38has lightning because they remove that powertrain. In its place, you have the electric motor from the
00:45Toyota Tundra Hybrid. You have the battery pack out of the Lexus NX plug-in hybrid, and you have
00:51the transmission out of a current GR86. That means it's a six-speed manual, an EV with a manual.
00:56What's it like to drive? We're about to find out, but first, we're going to drive the daddy. Look at
01:03this. 1985 Toyota Corolla GTS. It's got multiple valves. It's got more than one cam. It's amazing.
01:11Let's go.
01:17Woo!
01:19AE 86 life. I don't know why I've always wanted to say that.
01:25Cars from 1985. They were very small. They were very light. I, you know, obviously I'm too fat to
01:30be sitting in this thing, but it weighs 2,100 pounds. Cars aren't light anymore. Miata's the
01:37lightest one, but it's got about as much power as this does.
01:40Again, it's not a ton of power. I forget exactly what these are. 117 horsepower or something like
01:49that, but peppy, fun. It feels like, like, you know, when you, if you take off your work boots
01:56and you put on like, you know, vans or something like that, that's what it feels like climbing out
02:01of like a big modern car and into something like this. It's just like refreshing light feeling.
02:07What's cool about the 4A GE motor is that it is quite torquey. You'd think, you know,
02:14a naturally aspirated 1.6 liter motor, you know, just, it would just be, you'd have to rev it out
02:21to do anything. It's just a powerful, for what it is for 40 years ago, motor. Satisfying shifter.
02:28Clutch is great. Pedals are great. Oh, you can heel and tow. Unlike, like say a GR Corolla,
02:34which I may or may not own. It's like, copy these pedals. What are they thinking?
02:40Haven't got to do too much steering, but you know, grip levels are fine and you can,
02:44you can drift these pretty easily. You see a lot of stuff they do in Japan with them on the mountains.
02:49But the funny part is like, this, this car didn't happen by accident. So in a Toyota back,
03:01I think this launched in 83, they were good at making a little sports car. And then I think,
03:06you know, when they got away from rear drive, they just got, got away from it. Yeah,
03:10they make the GR86 today, but really Subaru makes that. And the Supra is BMW. Yeah. I mean,
03:18the GR Corolla, I bought one. I love it. Um, but you know, it's front wheel drive base. So
03:22it's really sad that Toyota got away from this and I've brought up that very point to Toyota executives
03:29before, before really the GR sub brand popped up, you know, they'd say like, well, the, uh, you know,
03:34the Tacoma, that's our sports car, which is like, oh, please. It would be interesting to,
03:41you know, have a multiverse where you could find out what like the successor to this would have been.
03:48It really is a great thing. Just needs like a little better air conditioning.
04:02Okay. Now we're in the EV. This is the electric 86. Boy, it feels shockingly the same. Even though
04:09I'm on the wrong side of the car, even though there's a roll cage, this one does feel a little
04:13bit tighter. And again, it has a roll cage. It's been gone over by Toyota diamond plate flooring.
04:19Look, this is breathed on by, uh, by a very skilled team at Lexus. It's fascinating though,
04:25what they did because they put an electric motor with the manual, but you know, this motor on its own
04:31can spin to 20,000 RPM, but they want to make it work with the manual. So they limited it. A red line
04:38is indicated at 6,000. They took the GTS engine and they recorded it at like every single RPM you could
04:45get. And then they take that sound and it's matched up to the transmission speed and their speakers.
04:52Um, it sounds like an exhaust are kind of behind me. You can hear the RPMs. I mean, RPMs really are
04:59building, but you hear them through the speakers. It's the engine node. Anyways, the effect is it
05:05feels and sounds just like you're driving, uh, an actual Corolla GTS. It's really a sweet bit of
05:13engineering. And I've, I've long said that like fake shifts on an EV are stupid because you're, you're,
05:18you're adding them in where they don't belong. This, you need to ship this thing because it has a
05:24actual six speed manual transmission. And, um, yeah, it, it shifts great. The difference is while I was
05:31impressed by the 85 car and how, uh, punchy and torquey, uh, that little 1.6 liter was, this is
05:37much torque here. It's, it's real torquey. It's a really fun thing to drive. And like, you know,
05:44is there a market for this kind of thing? I don't know if you can build a new one is that's the
05:49problem, right? Cause, cause this, this battery is relatively light. Like this is only 2,300 pounds.
05:55The actual car from the eighties was 2,100 pounds. So that's great. But the trade-off is range.
06:01You only have about 60 miles of range with this thing. It's like 90 kilometers. You can swap the
06:07battery instead of charging it. And it's only a level two charger, but if you're gonna swap the
06:11battery, it's something nuts. Like it takes 45 minutes to, uh, swap out the battery, which is
06:16unfortunate. Yeah. They could do, they could do a faster swapping battery. The other thing is though,
06:22um, you know, battery techs only only get better, but is there a world like BMW, for instance,
06:28you know, the, the, they've already announced it on the newer class of the new M3, you know,
06:32they're going to have a four motor electric version of it. I guess with multiple motors,
06:36a manual transmission wouldn't make sense, but could you do a powerful rear drive EV, a new one,
06:42where you have a manual? I don't know, but you know, if you're in a, uh, EV rest of modding,
06:51this, this does, oh, it's a lot of fun to drive and it makes a lot of sense. All right, here we go.
06:56And you went to, well, why would you do this? Why would you take a perfectly good, you know,
07:11GTS motor and, uh, replace it? Well, you know, look, you might break, you might want something
07:17torque here. You might be in a country or a situation where, you know, gas is too expensive,
07:22um, where you're not allowed to drive internal combustion engines, won't pass smog. Hey, guess
07:28what? This passes smog because you know, it's an EV. So there's lots of reasons why you would,
07:33you might just be an EV enthusiast, believe it or not, they exist. And then I guess the big question
07:38is, you know, why are they doing it? What are they learning from it? What's their takeaway? They're
07:42actually asking people like me, what we think about it. And we're giving them, I think, pretty positive
07:47feedback because this is a very cool car. Um, does that mean there's a future Lexus that's electric
07:56that's sporty rear drive with a manual? I don't know, but they know how to do it,
08:03but what a fun thing to drive and what a treat.
08:09And you know, I mean, not just limited to Toyotas, but you know, there, there is a world
08:14and, uh, you know, there are cars and I was saying this with like, uh, you know,
08:20like a Mercedes Pagoda and I'm blanking on the company that's electrifying them, but like,
08:24what's great about a Pagoda? The way it looks, how small it is. It's just beautiful. What's bad
08:29about an old Mercedes 280 SL? Ah, the engine transmission are totally forgettable. Well,
08:35rip them out, put in an EV powertrain, double, triple the power, not much more weight. If in fact,
08:41I think it's sometimes it's lighter once you get rid of all that gas tanks and exhaust pipes and all
08:46that stuff. Um, and yeah, look, they're not long distance cars, but like, you know, most of what
08:51we do is go to cars and coffee. They're great. So I, I do see a world where these EV resto mods
08:58are kind of a thing.
09:02So to wrap it all up, what do we think about Toyota's electric 86? Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's electric.
09:11What do we think about Toyota's electric 86? Um, we really like it. This is super fun. I mean, look,
09:19this is so up my alley. I can't even tell you. The last car I bought was a, you know,
09:23Toyota Corolla with a six speed manual. The car before that was an electric truck. So I like EVs.
09:29I like manual Toyotas. This is fun. I like sporty cars. I would love to see this with more range,
09:34but you know, forget the range, just plug it in. I would like to see this with more power. So, uh,
09:41this is a wonderful first start.
09:49I think if they wanted to, they could take this a lot further, but, um, I think it's really cool.
09:54And, uh, yeah, you know, like, like most car companies, I can't wait to see what they get
09:59up to next. Anyhow, thank you so much for watching. Once again, I'm Johnny Lieberman reporting for
10:04Motor Trend and we will catch you on the next episode.
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