Toyota is finally getting back into the sports car game with the revival of the Toyota Supra, but it may not stop there. There’s a chance that Toyota may bring back the Celica or MR2 to join the Supra and 86 in Toyota’s sports car lineup.
During a recent drive of a Supra prototype, Road & Track was able to ask Masayuki Kai, Assistant Chief Engineer on the Supra project a few more questions about Toyota’s future. Specifically if there’s a chance that Toyota could bring back some of its other iconic sports cars. We want to have Celica back, we want to have the MR2 back,” Kai stated. “The biggest was Supra. Supra was number one, the biggest demand from the market,” he continued. “Now that we’ve brought Supra back, what will come next depends on the market needs.”
Kai continued to hint that the Celica could come back as a all-wheel drive coupe, but there’s also a chance that the mid-engined MR2 could also make a comeback. The biggest issue is that today sports cars are a hard business case, since buyers are more interested in more practical options, like crossovers. Toyota was able to bring the Supra back to life thanks to help from BMW, so there’s a possibility that it may need to form another partnership to bring the Celica or MR2 back.
“Sports car are becoming more and more expensive to develop,” Kai stated. “So a single company cannot afford to invest in all the tooling for parts and components, because the volume of sports car is quite small. A sports car requires a lot of specific components that you cannot share with other cars.”
We’ll have to wait and see what happens, but it looks like Toyota might be serious about bringing the Celica back, since late last year it trademarked the Celica name again.
Source: Road & Track
