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Toyota has been teasing a new MR2 for what feels like ages now. On the road to the sports car’s eventual revival, the company’s top engineers took a GR Yaris and shifted its motor behind the driver’s seat, in Renault Clio V6-fashion. That mule looked great, but it’s got nothing on this test car recently caught blazing around Fuji Speedway, that hopefully teases what the company has in mind for the final product.
In these photos and short video embedded below, courtesy of X user @You_SuiKoyoAZ, we can see a compact coupe with big vents behind the doors and prominent box flares. The headlights and taillights look like GR Yaris units, further cementing that relationship. Yeah, it’s got a “built-in-a-shed” vibe to it, but it still looks perfect. If Toyota literally put this on sale tomorrow, I wouldn’t mind.
In the video specifically, the exhaust note you’re hearing belongs not to the G16E-GTS three-cylinder found in the production GR Yaris and GR Corolla, but a new, 2.0-liter four-cylinder, expected to pump out about 400 horsepower. This is the same mill Toyota’s been testing in what it calls “Concept M,” that aforementioned, mid-engine GR Yaris development car.
@You_SuiKoyoAZ via X
Also like Toyota’s rally machines, the MR2 is expected to route that power to all four wheels. Gazoo Racing engineering chief Naohiko Saito recently told the U.K.’s Auto Express that such a layout is “new” for the company, combining a midship engine with all-wheel drive, but that the team discovered in initial testing that such a pairing “offers the best layout for high-performance driving.”
If the GR crew’s recent history is anything to go on, it’s very likely that we see this evolved form of the Concept M compete on the circuit (or rally stage), and maybe enjoy a camouflaged public showing or two before we see the final MR2 with the cover pulled off. And that’s awesome—it’s been exciting to see Toyota develop these cars out in the open, showing all the while that they’re not vague concepts, but vehicles being honed and validated through motorsport. That’s the way it should be.
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Backed by a decade of covering cars and consumer tech, Adam Ismail is a Senior Editor at The Drive, focused on curating and producing the site’s slate of daily stories.
