The Toyota Altezza is a luxury sedan that is designed to take on the Mercedes C-class or the BMW 3-series. Unfortunately it never made it that far in terms of sales.
Famous for its distinctive taillights, the Toyota Altezza sort of followed in the footsteps of the AE86 as the successor of a cheap starter car to learn drifting in. Not that the Altezza has made as big of a name as the AE86 in the motorsports world, but it did become very popular amongst the young "Hashirya" culture. And as the 86 started to become more expensive and harder to find, the Altezza became a great alternative.
The basic RWD layout with a 2.0 liter naturally aspirated engine is not a bad starting car for drifting. The Altezza comes in two versions: the AS200 (150hp) and the RS200 (210hp).
The export version was released under the Lexus brand as the "IS" model offering a choice of a 2.0 or 3.0 liter engine. In Europe the 3.0 liter is only available in automatic transmission so the 2.0 liter is the one to look for. In the USA you can get 3.0 liter with manual transmission. Of course there is more than plenty of aftermarket support and you can soup up the horsepower to personal liking, or you can even swap engines with a 2JZ-GTE from the Supra
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