GT86 VS MIATA: THE BATTLE OF THE ENTRY LEVEL SPORTS CARS

On paper, neither the 86 nor the Miata is supposed to amaze any petrolhead in any way as both come with fairly poor and base level performance figures. Both come with ‘turbo free’ naturally aspirated engines from the factory. The GT86 comes with a 2.0 litre 4 cylinder Subaru boxer engine across all the variants as the GT86 was jointly made by Toyota and Subaru. This engine produces about 197-204 horsepower along with 205 N.m. of torque and the figures have mostly been consistent since the car was released back in 2012 with only a jump of about five horsepower back in 2017. On the other hand, the Mazda offers two different engine variants for the Miata with the base model offered with a 1.5L SkyActiv-G (P5-VPS) DOHC inline 4 engine while a slightly more powerful variant comes with a 2.0 L SkyActiv-G (PE-VPS) DOHC inline 4 engine along with a limited slip differential. The 1.5L of the base model Miata produces about 129 horsepower and about 150 N.m. of torque while the bigger 2.0L engine produces 155 horsepower in the earlier generation ND1 miata and about 181 horsepower with the ND2 Miata that is available from 2019. Both the GT86 and the Miata are offered with manual and automatic transmissions.