Toyota GT86

By the numbers the Toyota GT86 doesn’t look much to write home about. It’s not cheap to buy, it’s not especially powerful, will get left for dead in a straight line by most hot hatches and doesn’t have the premium badged appeal of the Audi TT you could have for similar money. Nor does it have the novelty value of a folding hardtop like the Mazda MX-5 RF it most closely matches in price and performance. The non-turbo engine also means high CO2 figures, the manual incurring a further penalty compared with the automatic due to its higher emissions bracket and significantly more expensive first-year tax. It’s not all bad though – compared with most performance cars consumables like tyres will be very cheap and, in our experience, it’s actually a lot better on fuel than the numbers might suggest.