The Toyota GR86 Looks Sick With This $2,500 Lexus ISF-Style TOM’S Exhaust
This double-double stacked exhaust from elite JDM tuner TOM’s looks incredible.
The second-gen Toyota GR86 and Subaru BRZ are both great-looking cars right out of the box. For those who like to personalize their vehicle's appearance, there's a copious selection of aero parts, exhaust tips, and more for these cars. One of my faves by far is this double-double stacked exhaust from TOM'S—a top-tier JDM tuner.
Here's a neat little sizzle reel where you can see the "TOM'S Barrel" exhaust system in its glory:
And here's another that shows a quick clip that includes a shot of how it's installed (you've got to cut the back bumper, eek!):
TOM'S has been in the business of modifying Toyotas since 1974. The name is an abbreviation of Tachi Oiwa Motor Sport, referring to company founders Nobuhide Tachi and Kiyoshi Oiwa. No relation to the hippie toothpaste or hipster shoes by the same name.
The relationship between TOM'S and Toyota was not unlike that of Mercedes-Benz to AMG in its early days. Tachi was a Toyota factory driver and Oiwa was an engineer involved in the dealership side, and Tom's helped campagin many race cars from Grands Prix to Le Mans to WEC to Super GT to Super Formula to F3 and others.
The company maintains an office in Tokyo and is still not only involved in motorsport, but makes elite upgrade parts primarily for Toyotas. I say "primarily" because the GR Supra and GR86 are supported, and of course those are partially a BMW and Subaru, respectively.
Anyway, I'm telling you all this so you don't spit your boba tea all over your phone when you read the price of this axle-back exhaust. It's $2,490 as distributed in America by A'pexi (another heavy-hitter of tuning). To make it fit, you'll also have to buy the TOM'S rear diffuser, which is $975. Almost $3,500 (plus tax and shipping) for not-even-a-cat-back exhaust is pretty intense, plus then you're going to want the skirts and front lip to match the rear bumper, right?
That level of investment isn't going to be for everybody, but if you do take the plunge, you'll have one seriously sweet-looking Toyobaru. I'm not crazy about the blue-burnt titanium look myself, but it also can be optioned with stainless-steel tips. Either way, the stacked look of these tips—a la Lexus ISF—is just insanely cool to me.
I want to buy one of these cars something fierce and if I can convince myself to pull the trigger, I'll be really tempted to keep splashing out to get this mounted up.
It's not new—in fact, there might not even be many of these mufflers in stock by the time you read this. But I've had the online catalog open in a browser window for a couple of weeks now and realized, “Hey, I bet there are a few readers who would dig this and haven't seen it."
I wouldn't expect much of a power gain with this alone, though it might make it a little easier to squeeze an HP or two out of a tune. Meanwhile, here's a sound clip:
While we're listening to the sweet sound of a boxer engine, check out this other TOM'S exhaust, the Titan 2! It's not quite as visually unique, but it replaces more of the factory system and in my humble opinion, sounds better.
Shoot, now I don't even know how I'll decide what pipes to fit if I ever do convince myself to buy one of these cars.
