What comes to mind when you think of Toyota designs? Functional yet uninspiring Corollas? Three-year old Camry taxis perhaps? But I doubt many would think of sleek and sexy shooting brakes.

In the past shooting brakes have predominantly a European things. Think of the Reliant Scimitar, the Volvo 1800ES, and my favourite of them all – the BMW Z3M Coupe. More recent examples include the Ferrari FF, Mercedes CLA & CLS Shooting Brake, and the Fisker Surf.

Seeing a trend here? Most of them, particularly the recent examples, are rather posh and expensive vehicles. There hasn’t been a shooting brake for the masses. Until now.

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Enter the 86 Shooting Brake Concept. A fully functioning and very real concept designed by Toyota’s design team in Australia. The concept was built in Japan but don’t get too excited, this is strictly a one-off design study.

The project began in 2014 when Tetsuya Tada, global chief engineer of the 86, was shown a one-quarter model of the original concept. The designers wanted to “explore the ways to expand its appeal while retaining the purity of the coupe”.

Toyota’s big wigs didn’t interfere much with the design, allowing designers to let their imaginations run free. The only caveat was the front end should remain the same. Everything else was a free-for-all.

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An obvious comparison can be made to the only production two-door shooting brake on the market, the Ferrari GTC4Lusso, in terms of styling. You could almost call it a Ferrari on a the cheap. There’s obviously a lack of two-door shooting brakes on the market so Toyota could be onto a new niche here.

The Shooting Brake is said to add more space and practicality in terms of luggage space but without a stretched wheelbase it’ll still be a tight fit for humans in the back seats. Still, when it looks this good who cares?

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Would you like to see Toyota produce an 86 Shooting Brake in the near future? Or would you rather they first did a convertible or perhaps a turbocharged variant instead?

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Ken Saito
Words cannot begin to describe how much I love cars but it's worth a try. Grew up obsessed with them and want to pursue a career writing about them. Anything from small city cars to the most exotic of supercars will catch my attention.

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