In 2023, Toyota achieved a record-breaking sales year in Europe, delivering a total of 1,173,419 vehicles, including those carrying the Lexus badge. The Yaris Cross emerged as the top-selling product, with 195,569 units, followed by the Corolla family with 166,925 cars, and the C-HR with 117,552 vehicles shipped to customers.

Never mind that, the real mindwarp is how the GR86 outsold the Prius by nearly double in the region last year; 4,041 units against 2,755 cars respectively! Just slightly behind the hybrid hatch is the GR Yaris, ending the year with 2,454 units sold.

Though at first this all seems implausible – considering the incentives and general sensibility of buying electrified vehicles in Europe – there's a bittersweet reason behind the GR86's success.

Chief among them is the impending departure of the model from the European market at the end of this year, meaning it's only been on sale there for two years (2022 to 2024). Contrary to what's usually said it isn't emissions that's killing it – it's the EU's new General Safety Regulation 2 (GSR2) coming into effect and legislating the coupe out.

Also read: Review: Toyota GR86 - It wants RON 98 but you'd gladly give it RON 100

Long story short, that's not to say that the Toyota Safety Sense equipped rear-wheel drive car isn't safe. Its just that complying to these new rules means the car needs to be completely re-engineered, which isn't the most productive nor fiscally adapt way to go about things, especially for a low-volume sports car.

Among the things that GSR2 mandates all new cars to have from 2025 are emergency lane keeping system (ELKS) and intelligent speed assistance (ISA); the exact two things that slam the brakes on the GR86's European career. In order to retrofit this to the model, Toyota told Autocar that they would have to "raise the roof and move the windscreen", which will affect the car's dynamics too.

Hence, this sign of the times is as good as any call to snag a compact, new sports car in this day and age, before it's gone for good. But wait...word on the grapevine is that Toyota might unveil the next-gen GR86 as early as 2025 to plug this gap. We can only hope...

Also read: Rumours: Third-gen Toyota GR86 to swap boxer engine for a 330 PS turbo 3-pot hybrid unit?