I did a thing

With apologies to Jeremy Clarkson

I will turn the ripe old age of 66 in a couple of days. It is turning out to be quite the eventful year for me.

My mid-life crisis, such as it was, happened years ago when I bought my first motorcycle. I had never ridden before, and it was sort of a spur of the moment thing for me at the time.

But now, a whirlwind of things are all happening around the same time that are life changing.

First, my divorce.

It has been a long time coming. We separated back in 2014, but at that time up until now I couldn’t afford a divorce. I had moved out eventually in 2021 and continued to be separated until she sort of forced my hand. We were finally divorced in May.

Filing for retirement.

I wanted to retire when I turned 62, but it turned out in Washington State in order to access my pension investments with the UW I needed to have her agree to it, and that wasn’t going to be forthcoming. But now with the divorce out of the way, I can retire. That is scheduled for next month. And with that, I can access my retirement savings without any interference. So I decided to reward myself with a little retirement present.

2026 Toyota GR86.

Toyota named the GR86 to combine its Gazoo Racing (GR) performance division with the vehicle's historical roots. The "GR" signifies its official membership in Toyota's motorsports family, while the "86" pays homage to the legendary 1980s Corolla AE86.

I had googled “affordable sportscar” and the top two were the Mazda Miata and the Toyota GR86 with a mention of the GR86’s sibling, the Mazda BRZ.

Being a Toyota fanboi from way back, I decided on the Toyota. I also don’t want to buy what everyone else is driving, and the GR86 is fairly rare (I don’t recall seeing one). Toyota delivers a strictly limited number of cars, causing a supply and demand bottleneck. You can’t order a car from the factory with your preferred color and options, but instead you have to wait for one to show up on a showroom floor. It is a very popular car, with waitlists and eager buyers.

I sort of lucked out in that the car was on it’s way to be delivered to the local dealership, and I was able to buy it without any hassles once it arrived. I assume a lot of people are waiting for the 2027s to ship, which usually is in a few months, but from my research, there is almost no differences between a 2026 and the next.

It is also one of the few cars shipped with a choice between automatic and manual transmission, with the manuals far outselling the automatics. This one is the manual.

I cut my teeth on manuals as a teenager. I learned how to drive one on all things, an arcade game called Speed Shift.

It was basically a drag racing game with a clutch and 4 speed shift mechanism. Much like a real car, you slammed in the clutch, shift into the next gear, and release. That motion of clutch shift gas helped me get the hang of driving a stick shift in real life, believe it or not.

The first time my dad took me out to learn how to drive was in a VW microbus with a 4 speed manual transmission. I still remember starting out, and just as my dad was going to give me directions on how to shift into 2nd, I was already doing it. No problem. I’m sure he was impressed, but he never said so.

I even took my driving test in another VW, this time an old VW station wagon with the same 4 speed transmission and dinky engine.

And every car since then, until the late 1990s when I retired from the Air Force and bought a house did I abandon the manual for a truck. As a new home owner, you sort of need a truck to haul stuff around.

But I loved sports cars, and owned a number of them. This is me going back to my roots.

The car has the premium package, with a ton of bells and whistles and terrific technology. I’ve never owned a car like this.

The instrument cluster is a multifunction digital display with a number of switchable views. And if you turn on track mode, the display changes to this:

I will never take it onto a track of course. But it’s a cool feature.

But every time I look at the car, or drive it, I keep thinking about a scene in the old Tom Cruise movie “Risky Business”. His wealthy parents had left him home along while they went on vacation, and in the garage sat a beautiful 1979 Porsche 928.

Inevitably, Tom takes it out for a drive, and it ends up at the bottom of Lake Michigan. He has the car towed to be repaired, and when he went to go pick it up, the shop manager asked “OK, who is the U-Boat commander?”. Funny line, and one that I remember to this day.

Hopefully I’ll never drop it into Lake Michigan, or any body of water for that matter.

Of course, I overlook the fact the joke worked better since the Porsche is a German car.

Driving it is a hoot. I am blessed to have a lot of wonderful back country roads to cruise around in and this car glides around the twisties with ease. I’ve not owned a car with a relatively high redline (7500) so I’m not used to shifting so much later. Passing is awesome, with plenty of power to spare, the car leaps forward eagerly.

My only two quibbles with the car is the location of the cup holders and no place to put a phone.

The cup holders are under the hatch behind where my elbow would rest. Virtually useless for the driver. There are cup/bottle holders in the door that will probably get more use.

For my phone, besides the cup holders, there is literally no place to put it.

Now, granted, it’s a sports car, and creature comforts are secondary to actually driving it, but having gotten used to those creature comforts, it’s a bit of a hassle to deal with until I figure out an aftermarket solution (I can’t be the only one who has these issues).

It also is a bit pricy to drive, as it requires premium unleaded gas to feed it’s 2.4L boxer engine. Gas mileage is totally dependent on your driving style, and as expected, a mixed city/highway is going to be around 23MPG give or take a few launches and downshifts. For me, I typically put only about 5k miles a year on a vehicle, as in the summer riding season I will put the rest on my motorcycle.

So, after several decades of not driving a stick, it’s taking some getting used to, finding the friction zone, applying the right amount of gas to not kill it (twice now) and otherwise becoming one with the machine. Wish me luck!