The thing about entry-level sports cars is that while we love them—and we’re willing to bet you do too since you’re reading this—the vast majority of customers less concerned with driving enjoyment prefer something more practical, with room for people and things. This has always been the way, but over the years, the market’s shift away from cheap, two-door fun has accelerated. It’s a trend touching just about every player in this field, except one: the Toyota GR86.
While sales of many entry- or mid-level sports cars fell last year, the plucky GR86 kept strong. Toyota moved 11,426 examples in the U.S. in 2024, a slight increase over 2023’s 11,078 total, according to CarFigures. It should also be said that sales of the Mazda Miata stayed relatively stable last year, at 8,103 units. That’s a decline from 2023’s 8,973, per GoodCarBadCar, but hey—selling 8,000 convertibles in 2024 should be commended, and it’s encouraging to know the Miata has staying power.
It’s when we turn to the rest of the market that things get both depressing and confusing. We know that last year was the first in which Nissan got it together and the Z finally topped the Supra in sales. Yet, even if you summed up those two coupes—3,164 units for the Z, 2,615 for the Supra—you get just barely over half of the GR86’s total.
“Well those cars are more expensive,” you might be saying—and that’s true, they’re certainly in a class above. There’s one big contender we haven’t talked about, of course, one that shares almost all of the GR86’s parts except its badge. The BRZ, you’d reckon, should compare favorably in sales. And yet, Subaru moved only 3,345 of them last year—less than a third of the GR86’s result. What’s going on?
Fortunately, Subaru has shared some insight into why the sales balance has tilted so strongly in Toyota’s favor. Over the summer, a representative from the automaker told Motor1 that BRZ deliveries are “directly linked” and seemingly hampered by production. “We are allotted a certain amount of production units for the U.S. market and we are prioritizing Forester production,” the spokesperson told the outlet.
Tally up sales of the BRZ, Supra, and Z, and we’re at 9,124. Even if you add the Supra’s German cousin, the BMW Z4, and its 2,129 deliveries into the mix, you still land about 170 cars shy of the GR86’s number.
That’s just about the reasonably priced foreign sports coupe market in the U.S. It should be noted that the domestic party—the Ford Mustang (44,003), Chevy Corvette (33,330), and Dodge Challenger (27,056; also, discontinued last year), obviously play in a different league. But each of those was still down last year. Mustang sales dropped by roughly 4,600 in 2024, while the Corvette was off by just about 1,000 cars.
It’s refreshing that the GR86 has been recognized by the market as an option for low-cost thrills. It also makes you wonder how the likes of the Honda Civic Si, Hyundai Elantra N, and Volkswagen GTI are doing. It’s challenging to get numbers for the first two, as those spicier trims aren’t typically broken out in terms of sales within their parent models. But we do know how the GTI performed because there’s no ordinary Golf here in the States anymore. VW shifted 11,072 examples of the quintessential hot hatch in 2024, a marked 48% improvement over 7,451 in 2023. That’s great, and yet, the less-practical GR86 still beat it.
Near the end of this year, a new contender among sport coupes will arrive on the scene: the Honda Prelude. We won’t truly know how it’ll fare relative to the GR86 and others until the end of 2026, after its first full year on the market. It’s also a different proposition from many of these vehicles: front-wheel drive, hybrid, and less geared for out-and-out performance. Still, the more the merrier in the world of two-door fun.
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