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
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Toyota is shaping up as my favourite company currently as they actually dont only bring suvs anymore (im looking at you mitsubishi) and actually bring new sports cars
If they combined the MR2 with the Celica, and it would have RWD, manual and semi-auto only, and it would look retro and modern at the same time, I’m throwing my money at Toyota’s face, and i’d be revving and drifting the car.
Mr2 plzzzz
To Toyota,
Please bring back the Celica as a lightweight, RWD sports car with a twin cam inline 4. Just as it used to be, and just as it shoud’ve stayed.
Regards, a Celica owner.
In seriousness, I have no problem with later model Celicas. In fact, I quite like some of them. But as the GT86 is reaching the end of its life (probably) it’d be really cool to see the Celica name brought back on a RWD sports car, based on the same principles of the first 3 generations.
GT-FOUR mate…
Hmm hopefully they’ll put one of their own engines in this
if they do the celica please go back to the gt-four days, and an mr2 should be back to the sw20, both the last gen of the celica and mr2 were designed by the same guy and he ruined both, so they shouldnt go that route again
YES YES YES! Finally some news that ain’t about some new SUV.
Funny enough, I would pick the Celica because marketing will probably put it at a more affordable price. Really. If they made a new MR2, they can jack up the price because of the badge.
Mr2! They’d be silly not to given how hot the old one is at the moment