A quarter of a century ago, Toyota released the Toyota Corolla (better known as the Trueno or Sprinter in Japan). The car would eventually go on to be highly successful in various motorsports around the world and more notably become an icon of the drift motorsports scene. With it’s nimble front-engine rear-wheel-drive layout coupled with a spunky 1.6L 4AGE engine, it remains the underdogs’ weapon of choice.

Although there has been a lot of hopes that Toyota would return to it’s roots with small rear-wheel-drive coupes perhaps under the Scion badge, the brand came without any real performance models worthy of the car enthusiasts’ fanfare. That is until last Tuesday when Toyota officially revealed that there was truth in the rumors about a revival of the iconic sports coupe.

The FT-86 Concept, a joint development project with Subaru, will debut at the Tokyo Auto Salon next month with plans that the production model will be within dealer showrooms by late 2011. Toyota hasn’t said much about the FT-86 yet, but it has been long rumored that Toyota’s RWD chassis will be powered by a Subaru-derived 2-Liter boxer four in naturally aspirated form.

Drawing inspiration directly from the AE86 sports coupe, the FT-86 concept was designed by Toyota’s European Design Development (ED2) studio in Nice, France and features many of the design cues from Toyota’s FT-HS hybrid concept unveiled at the Detroit Auto Show 2007.

Subaru has not commented yet whether or not they will add their all-wheel-drive system but has confirmed that the styling will be distinct. Other confirmations of the concept to production is a six-speed manual transmission and 2+2 seating arrangement.

A few days earlier, Mr. Toyoda made criticism on the lack of excitement in the industry saying that, “Surely it is us — the automakers — who have abandoned our passion for cars”. Already the industry is buzzing with delight that Toyota has made a move back in the right direction.

If you just can’t wait until 2011 to drive the production model, you can take a virtual test-drive of it in Gran Turismo 5. Plus, you get to skip the Toyota and Subaru salespeople too. (Not that we don’t like sales people, they just don’t like us, especially when we take every gear to redline.)

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