When Toyota teased a new mid-engined GR vehicle ahead of the Tokyo Auto Salon earlier this month, all signs pointed towards a new MR2 sports car.
This followed years of speculation from Japanese media about the MR2’s revival, encouraged by Toyota testing a new turbocharged four-cylinder engine in the GR Yaris, mid-mounted to better act as a potential test mule.
In the end, Toyota fooled us all, and instead revealed a GR-modified version of the Daihatsu HiJet truck, which is technically mid-engined, but not the sports car fans were looking forward to.
Toyota made no further comments or hints about the new MR2, however GR president Tomoya Takahashi has now told Automotive News the latest on a potential timeline – and it’s not looking like we’ll see it soon.
According to Takahashi, a production version of the car the GR Yaris test mule is developing is only in its first of four stages, which can take four to five years overall, putting a debut in the late 2020s out of the picture.
Currently the GR Yaris test mule (officially called the GR Yaris M Concept) is being used in the Super Taikyu race series to expedite its development pathway, though its debut in the championship was delayed due to “difficulties unique to midship-mounted vehicles in terms of braking, steering, and driving”.
Despite officially not confirming the return of the MR2, Toyota has recently been open talking about previous generations of the sports car icon, with Takahashi telling Toyota Times, the brand’s in-house magazine, said the snap oversteer-prone characteristic of the classic model resulted in the new test car being all-wheel drive.
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“The midship layout was our way of making cars that are fun for customers to drive. As for why we went with four-wheel drive for the midship, you can trace that back to the MR2,” Takahashi said.
“The MR2 likewise had an incredibly well-balanced weight distribution between the front and rear, but it was prone to spinning. What made the car turn so well also led it to spin out easily on corners.
“By turning that layout into four-wheel drive, you transform the power that causes the vehicle to spin into a force that pulls the car forward, improving stability through corners. That’s why we took on the challenge of a midship four-wheel drive, aiming for faster, more stable cornering.
“When you get behind the wheel, we hope the first thing people notice is how well the car turns. From here, development is going to happen out on the racetrack for all to see, as we want customers who purchase the car in the future to feel that they’ve been part of the process.”
According to Toyota, the new turbocharged 2.0-litre will be more powerful than the 2.4-litre turbo-petrol engine in a number of its vehicles – such as the Tacoma and Australian market Kluger until last year – but it’ll be about 10 per cent shorter, making it “suitable for a wide range of vehicles that require high output, from sports cars to trucks and other heavy-duty vehicles”.
“We developed it to fit in a small car like the GR Yaris because the packaging and engineering is more demanding,” Takahashi told Automotive News. “If we can do that, we can easily deploy it in bigger vehicles.”
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