This new 86 however, is just the beginning of Toyota's sports car renaissance. Soon, there will be an entry-level sports car, and of course, a Big Dog range-topper. You know the name.

"With my next sportscar," explains Tada-san, "I want to make a big... ‘wow'." His arms gesticulate large vortex circles. "Nobody expected us to build something like the GT 86. I want to give the world a shock." Does that mean we are - whisper it - getting a new Supra?

He laughs. Quite loudly. "Of course, anything is possible." Sasaki-san also chirrups in. "With the 86, we didn't want to use driver aids - that's the thinking. But new Supra means big power, so we need something for that. It'll be a different avenue of sports car from the GT 86."

Tantalisingly, neither of them would formulate anything concrete, so it remains as thus: the GT 86 is the hot new thing on the block, and a new Supra is "just one avenue of sports car Toyota could take. There are others too." One thing is for sure however: if Tada-san has his way, the new sports car definitely won't be a hybrid.

We sat down with Toyota 86 chief engineer Tetsuya Tada during an international media event for the groundbreaking compact RWD sports car, and he shared with us some of his company's future product plans. According to Tada, the 86 is just the first of three sports cars that Toyota is planning to roll out, and that the 86 is the middle of the two in terms of market positioning.

"The first is more mass-market and cheaper than the 86," Tada revealed. "And the third is more upmarket than the 86."

When asked if the higher-end sports car is the successor to the Supra, Tada said it could possibly be but that nothing is sure yet since his team is still in the process of conceptualizing the two other Toyota sports cars. He also noted that it takes five years to develop a sports car from conceptualization to production, as compared with the three years it normally takes to develop a regular vehicle.