Toyota Hopes To Resurrect Either The MR2 Or The Celica
Toyota is once again strongly hinting that the Supra is just the start of a sports car revival at the company. A few months ago Toyota Supra chief engineer Tetsuya Tada noted that the newly-established ‘GR Group’ enables the company to “have specific resources, more resources, for developing sports cars and race cars,” but now assistant chief engineer Masayuki Kai has gone a step further in whetting the appetite of petrolheads.
Speaking to Road & Track, Kai-san dropped two pretty major names into the conversation “We want to have Celica back, we want to have the MR2 back…The biggest was Supra. Supra was number one, the biggest demand from the market,” he said, adding, “Now that we’ve brought Supra back, what will come next depends on the market needs.”
As to how either car might shape up, there are no plans at this stage. Kai-san hinted about the possibility of a new all-wheel drive Celica, and a mid-engined car using the MR2 designation. “Or maybe it could be a completely different model…We’ll have to wait and see,” he said.
Development costs remain a stumbling block - due to the more bespoke nature of sports cars and the more modest sales expectations, Toyota may need to go for another joint venture to make the business case work. It worked for the Supra, a car we probably wouldn’t have without the tie-up with BMW which has also given the world an all-new Z4.
When pointed out by Road & Track that Mazda manages to go solo with the MX-5, Kai-san responded: “They continuously developed that car. If you don’t do this - like Toyota, stopping the Supra for 16 years - it’s extremely difficult to bring it back.”
Growing up on a diet of World Rally Championship highlights and lengthy Gran Turismo 2 sessions, a life in cars was as good as inevitable for Matt.
Comments
I vote for an awd celica
How bout two versions of the celica
One FWD
And also AWD
Qian Li
AWD but also RWD like the original
please do new mr2. Please make it in mx5 price range. please make it fun.
A new mr2 with a perfect chassis and a “normal” engine, maybe hybrid, so it can be daylied without eating too much gas
I hope they let us have a GT4 bc the 6th gen celica, especially the GT4 was fire. ALso it seems like we are starting another japanese sports car era
And if that is the case and if mitsubishi gets their shit together: the next decades are going to be great
Guys its legit the age of revival of our JDM legends
We’re getting the Supra so I’d be more excited about an MR2!
MR2 pls
An AWD Sports Coupe from Toyota would be pretty awesome. A Mid Engined RWD (Or FWD) sports car from Toyota would also be pretty awesome. Personally, I’d hope they’d do the AWD Celica
A mid engined car would never be FWD
The Celica would probably end up selling more than the MR2
I would much prefer the MR2, but I agree that the Celica probably makes more business sense
There’s the market for it. As an owner of a 40 year old Celica, I’ve talked to countless people, now in their 50s and 60s, who have fond memories of Celicas from their youth. If a new Celica came onto the market built on the same principles of the early RWD generations, it’d sell pretty well.
Mr2. keep the midengine, rwd or awd NO FWD and No auto trans.
And put it at a Camry price point.
The MR2 has to be midengine, it stands for “Midship Runabout 2-seater” and/or “Midship RWD 2-seater” although Toyota never confirmed which one. Either way, it would have to be midengine to make any sense, and with the engine in the middle FWD is more expensive to produce. Especially since Toyota could just drop in a FWD drivetrain from a Corolla, Camry, etc. and tune it a bit.
Midengined automatic front wheel drive car lol ?! :)
auto trans ftw
fite me
But what if they did this?
No😂
No. Toyota would never do that. In fact, the arrival of the new supra is already a very good thing, because not many Japanese car companies are willing to do this, even though they need to collaborate with other manufacturer to cut the cost.
I have a similar Rav4, and tbh it’s sportier than the last gen Celica ever could be. Oh and AWD, because why not.
And call it the Celica Cross
I would lose all faith in Toyota and remove all the badges from my Celica in shame if they did that.