At Last, The Moderately More Powerful Toyotabaru Not Coming To America We've All Dreamed Of

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Hey look! Some tuners modified a Toyobaru BRZR-S with some aero bits, bigger brakes, a retuned suspension and a tiny bit more horsepower! And it won’t come to America! Outstanding!

The tuning arm of Gazoo Racing, GRMN, has built some badass versions of the beloved Toyota GT86. Nearly three years ago, they showed us a drool-worthy Supra-looking version of Toyota’s beloved small sports car.

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But now GRMN has a production performance version of the GT86 called the Toyota 86GRMN. It gets lots of aero upgrades like a special front splitter, enormous rear wing, rear spoiler, side cooling fins and big obnoxious vents in the carbon-fiber hood.

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The 86GRMN also gets bigger brakes with six-piston calipers in the front and four-pistons in the back, rear braces for increased stiffness, a revised “sporty” interior and a plastic windshield. All that, combined with a retuned the suspension makes for a car that should handle better than a stock GT86. So that’s good.

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But the big news is that the GRMN weighs about 100 pounds less than a standard GT86 and that GRMN has worked genuine miracles with the engine. Along with a new ECU tune, they’ve added lightweight pistons, low tension piston rings, low friction crank bearings and a new equal length exhaust manifold for a net power increase of a whopping, unfathomable, inconceivable 16 horsepower.

Sixteen horsepower, folks! That’s like, nearly two early Citroen 2CVs! There are also more torques, too: 6.42 purple nurples worth, to be exact (9 lb-ft).

So, in the end, it’s a BRZ with a bit more power, a bit less weight, stronger brakes and better aerodynamics. That’s not “uninteresting,” but it wouldn’t register in the “I can’t even” category, so we’ll go ahead and classify it as “moderately interesting.”

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The special “Born On Nürburgring” 86GRMN will be limited to 100 samples and are available only in Japan for 6.48 million yen, or approximately 54 grand in U.S. bucks.

Here’s a video of a man speaking Japanese in the car on the Nürburgring.

Here are some more pics. At least it looks cool.

Photo Credit: Gazooracing