AFTER an 18-year hiatus, affirmation of a resurrected Celica has come from Toyota head-office in Japan that means one other Toyota sports activities coupe is within the offing… and presumably even a couple of.
Unusually, given the present atmosphere, the brand new Toyota Celica it’s prone to be petrol-powered and never use electrical help.
A brand new trademark software for the legendary Celica title is already lodged with authorities in Japan.
The information emerged in a report from Japans’ Finest Vehicles publication quoting Toyota chief expertise officer, Hiroki Nakajima who, on the behest of Toyota chairman Akio Toyoda mentioned, “To be sincere, there isn’t any signal of it proper now. Nevertheless, there are a lot of folks inside the firm who’re eagerly awaiting the Celica”.
When pressed, Nakajima-san added, “So, I’m wondering if it’s okay to say this in a public discussion board, however we’re doing the Celica”.
The revelation was, based on Finest Automobile, made during the last weekend in November on the Toyota Stadium within the Aichi Prefecture as a part of the 2024 Rally Japan festivities.
In the course of the occasion, the outlet reported attendees asking questions primarily about Toyota’s plans for the next-generation GR86, particularly whether or not it might proceed to have rear-wheel drive and whether or not it might be turbocharged or not.
The publication additionally mentioned Gazoo Racing driver Kazuya Oshima took the microphone and mentioned the event crew is “presently engaged on numerous issues”, including gasoline to rumours that the MR2 was additionally prone to return.
Toyota is within the strategy of growing a brand new household of small four-cylinder petrol engines with 1.5- and a couple of.0-litre displacements that will go well with the Celica software.
The two.0-litre unit – with as much as 300kW – shall be turbocharged whereas the 1.5-litre unit is predicted to come back with and with out pressured induction.
On prime of this, Akio Toyoda has been channelling former World Rally Champion and Celica driver Juha Kankkunen when Celica discuss arises.
“I’m not simply saying this as a result of we’re at a rally occasion, however Kankkunen is Mr Celica. He was champion 4 instances within the Celica,” Toyoda-san is reported as saying.
“Now you’ll be able to all have a take into consideration why I’m utilizing Kankkunen a lot. See in the event you can guess!”
All this follows different sturdy rumours emanating from Toyoda who admitted in an interview again in October 2023 that “he had requested the higher-ups to revive the sports activities automobile”.
Celica hints have been circulating over the previous 12 months culminating within the title Celica Mk 8 showing on a whiteboard in a current episode of Toyota’s Grip anime collection that additionally talked about the MR2 Mk 4, GR86 Mk 3, GR GT3 and a Lexus LFR.
Lastly, final 12 months, Toyota president Tsuneji Sato publicly introduced his help for the return of the beloved nameplate.
However the elephant within the room is what does a brand new Celica imply for Toyota’s present rear-wheel drive sports activities coupe the GR86 – and whether or not the brand new Celica be front-wheel drive because it was within the mid- to later phases of its earlier life.
Toyota insiders counsel the GR86 will dwell on for at the very least one other technology doubtless with new energy crops together with these talked about above changing the two.4-litre boxer four-cylinder unit sourced from Subaru.
