Toyota is building the GR Celica. Not in the fever dream of some forum user who spent too many nights watching ’90s WRC highlight reels. The company’s chief technology officer said so out loud, in public, at the end of 2024. And since then, the breadcrumbs have piled up with the kind of quiet consistency that only means one thing: this is actually happening.
Development prototypes are already on the road. Dealers reportedly got a look at the car last June. Toyota’s VP of product planning for North America described the project as “pretty advanced”. And if that’s not enough, Toyota was photographed testing a rally prototype whose silhouette maps onto the upcoming coupe with suspicious precision. Suspicious, that is, unless you remember that the Celica spent the late ’80s and early ’90s winning rallies and breaking hearts in equal measure.
The name is no longer just nostalgia bait. Toyota has registered the GR Celica trademark in multiple countries. The architecture looks classically honest. Front-engine, rear-wheel drive, with all-wheel drive as an option for those who like their fun with a safety net. No mid-engine layout. That road leads elsewhere in the GR lineup, and it’s still four or five years out.
The engine is where it gets genuinely interesting. The new 2.0-liter turbocharged four-cylinder G20E is expected to produce somewhere between 400 and 450 HP in standard tune, with the potential to crack 600 with a more aggressive turbo setup. A 500-horsepower hybrid variant hasn’t been ruled out either. Toyota plans to deploy the G20E across its lineup by the end of 2026, and the engine has already proven itself in competition, which is exactly the kind of calling card a performance brand should hand out.
Styling should follow the current Gazoo Racing playbook. Hammerhead front end, full-width rear light bar, fastback roofline, driver-focused cabin with digital instrumentation and sport seats. A manual gearbox will be available. Paddle shifters for those who’ve made their peace with the automatic.
Pricing in the US is expected to start around $40,000, above the GR Corolla, below the Supra. Which makes perfect sense if Toyota’s goal is to build Gazoo Racing into a proper performance brand with an actual lineup, not just two halo cars and a lot of goodwill borrowed from motorsport history. No official reveal date yet. But everything points to Toyota showing its hand before the end of 2026, or early 2027 at the latest.
