The Story
This car was never supposed to be a GR86. At first, I wanted something louder—turbo noises, stututu and pssst—and I was deep into Genesis Coupes, Audi S4s, and BMWs. But growing up around my dad’s love for Miatas shaped me more than I realized. My first car, a 1994 Mazda Miata with pop-ups, taught me everything—late night drives, back roads, and beach cruises. Then came my Mazda3 iTouring, already modified with coilovers, BBS wheels, exhaust, and sway bars. It was a great daily, but it never felt like mine, and that’s when I knew I wanted to start from stock. After moving cross-country and finding new roads, I started looking at the BRZ, but the GR86 just felt right—the look, the presence, everything. I searched everywhere for one at MSRP, tracking dealerships in a spreadsheet, and when I finally found one on allocation, I asked for one spec: Raven, Premium, manual. They told me six months, then called the next day saying the exact spec was arriving in two weeks. I took that as a sign. Since then, this car has become so much more than expected—a true balance between a purpose-built track car and a refined show car. It’s been transformed with an AWE Touring exhaust, Tomei front pipe and header setup, HKS coilovers, Cusco arms, Project Mu brakes, CE28s wrapped in 255s, full aero, a Bride seat, and more—ceramic coated, dialed in, and pushed on both the street and track. Along the way, it’s connected me with brands I’m proud to represent like Epsilon Aero, Alpharex, Verus Engineering, Racebred, JQ Werks, StudioRSR, and Aerowerkz, and taken me to events like WEKFEST LA, SPOCOM, IAM America, and soon ToyotaFest 2026. This isn’t just a car I bought—it’s something I’ve built to represent me, and I’m far from done.
