Japan has certainly been serving up the exotics on this Tokyo motor show trip. First we got our initial drive in the Honda NSX, a £120,000-plus supercar with hybrid technology like no other. Now Mazda has arguably stolen the Tokyo show itself with the RX-Vision, a car that appears to have set new records for individual story traffic on Autocar.co.uk (and at the dead of night in the UK, too).
Still, if you’re after something more mainstream then you’re probably drooling over Toyota’s S-FR, a baby sports car with a 1.5-litre four-cylinder engine, rear-wheel drive and a six-speed gearbox. Japan has a history of producing baby roadsters (think Mazda MX-5 and S2000, or even Toyota’s old MR2), so it stands to reason that the S-FR should make a great stablemate to the GT86 in the company’s global line-up, right?
I’m not sure. It’s tiny, the S-FR - not quite kei-car dimensions, but surely not too far off them. And it is unmistakably, unapologetically Japanese, with styling that borders on the cute. And that gaping mouth of a grille; in the lurid shade of the show car, it looks like a bemused toddler in a dayglo vest.
That doesn’t mean I don’t like it, by the way. It will fit in beautifully in Japan and Asian markets when Toyota does decide to build it. But for the UK, much like Honda’s S660, I fear the S-FR may be better suited as an oddball curio on the grey import market than a fully fledged model sitting in an official dealership in Yorkshire.
It’s brilliant - but I’m not sure enough of the people in the UK who want a miniature rear-drive sports car would buy it.
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It's a safety issue
When they make them RHD
When?
I would love to buy it, I
Good point
You don't have to store stuff inside a car
Obviously a roof-rack is no go with a convertible but you see plenty of MX-5s with cargo racks on top of the boot, and I believe the Mark 1 was rated to tow a trailer.
Get type approval for towing even a small trailer and stuff like mounting biking should be no big deal. It's not appropriate for parking around town, but if you need to carry a lot of stuff on urban journeys than a hard top with a roof box should work. I'd expect it to work particularly well on a narrow and low car like this.
If you like a car but it's not appropriate then it's well worth looking at the modifications and accessories available that might sort out the problem.
Would I buy an S-FR myself? Probably not but I'd certainly be interested in a small cheap Japanese coupe or convertible like the S660 or Copen Mk2, especially if it was available at the same price at that other style-focused 2+2, the Fiat 500.