Toyota Teasing Mid-Engined Mystery For Tokyo Auto Salon

The Japanese car rumour mill has been turning at maximum speed over the last few years around the potential return of the Toyota MR2, and the latest development hints that the company could unveil… something as soon as this Friday, 9 January, at the Tokyo Auto Salon.

The rumours stem from a post on X earlier by Toyota’s Gazoo Racing performance division, featuring a clip of an imagined text conversation between a Toyota employee and the company’s chairman, Akio Toyoda, the man heavily responsible for the company’s introduction of many enthusiast-focused cars over the last few years.

In the conversation (translated from Japanese), Toyoda reveals that he’s acquired a new mid-engined two-seater that he wants to have ready to display at the Auto Salon, which kicks off on Friday.

If we’re to take this literally, it could simply mean that Toyoda has genuinely acquired a new personal car, perhaps an old MR2, or maybe something from a different brand entirely, that he’ll be displaying at TAS. The post itself does somewhat reinforce this, as part of it translates to 'Will the customisation be completed in time for the Tokyo Auto Salon?' However, given the ongoing rumours around the MR2’s rebirth, it’s hard to resist the temptation to read a little more into this.

Those rumours started gathering pace in 2023 with the reveal of the Toyota FT-Se, a sports car concept with distinctly mid-engined proportions, albeit an electric powertrain. Since then, the company has been hesitant to go all-in on electric performance cars, and industry chatter out of Japan suggests that the FT-Se is instead being used as the basis for a new MR2, powered by Toyota’s new 2.0-litre four-cylinder turbo engine and hooked up to an all-wheel drive system.

That last point gathered further credence this time last year, at the 2025 Tokyo Auto Salon, when Toyota unveiled the GR Yaris M, a four-wheel drive prototype based on the company’s rally-bred hot hatch but featuring that new four-pot engine mounted amidships. It wasn’t immediately clear what the purpose of it was, but it looks increasingly likely that it’s effectively a test mule for a new MR2, based on comments from a Toyota factory racing driver.

Other tidbits have suggested a revival of the mid-engined sports car is on the cards too, including a teaser in Toyota’s in-house anime series, Grip, and late last year, the discovery that the company had registered ‘GR MR2’ as a trademark.

Has it all been leading up to the reveal of something at TAS, or is it all one big red herring? If we do get info on a new MR2 then, combined with the rumoured return of the Subaru WRX STI, this could be a very happy occasion for fans of Japanese performance cars.