The Toyota GR86 and Subaru BRZ may be cut from the same cloth, but their sales figures are shockingly different. With the second quarter of the year now under way, we can take a closer look at how the affordable sports cars fared in the first half of 2024. Through June, the GR86 has been purchased 7,467 times in the U.S., while its platform-sharing sibling has managed just 1,414 sales.
The GR86 outsells the nearly identical BRZ by five times, which gives us pause for thought. We reached out to Subaru to find out why their car is far less popular. In the meantime, the only logical explanation we can think of for the BRZ’s lackluster sales is the vehicle’s potentially limited availability at dealerships. It should be noted that Toyota has a much stronger retail network than Subaru in the U.S., which would partially explain the sales gap.
Toyota is happy to report that demand for the GR86 is up 41.9 percent this year, while Subaru says demand for its sister car is down 43.7 percent from January to June. Last month, 1,500 people bought a GR86, while just 243 bought a BRZ. As you can imagine, the BRZ is the slowest-selling product in Subie’s portfolio through June. The same can’t be said for the GR86, which outsold the Crown, Supra and others.
Speaking of Toyota’s higher-end sports car, which just lost its four-cylinder engine for the 2025 model year, demand fell 7.8 percent in the first six months of the year. Deliveries were down to 1,495 units, and with the cheaper base model gone, the future doesn’t look too bright. There’s a hotter Supra GRMN on the way, but that’s unlikely to change things since it’s expected to be a limited-run special edition.
In this context, we ask Toyota why it sold only 13 units of the Prius in June, compared to the same month last year when it sold 2,466. We will update this article as soon as we hear more.