Toyota has confirmed that a new GR Celica will compete in the 2027 World Rally Championship. The car will be entered by a new team, Toyota Racing, while Toyota Gazoo Racing will continue to field the GR Yaris. Both teams will compete in the top Rally1 class.
The 2027 regulations will introduce a shared control chassis for Rally1 teams and adapted versions of the turbocharged 1.6-liter inline-four engines used in Rally2. As a result, the GR Celica and GR Yaris rally cars are expected to share their underlying hardware, with their bodywork providing the main visible difference.
Toyota is also expected to develop a road-going Celica, but the production model remains several years away. The rules allow WRC teams to race cars without a road-going counterpart, and Toyota’s quicker development of the rally car does not mean the road version is close to launch. The production car is expected to have little in common with the rally machine beneath its bodywork.
Its platform and powertrain have not been confirmed. Reports have linked the Celica to a mid-engine platform that could also support a revived MR2, while other speculation points to a front-engine layout more in keeping with the Celica’s history. The GR Celica rally car will have its engine mounted at the front, but that does not establish the layout of the road car.
Toyota Gazoo Racing head Tomoya Takahashi said earlier this year that development of the mid-engine platform had reached its first of four stages, with readiness expected closer to 2030. The platform is also expected to support a turbocharged 2.0-liter inline-four, though no engine details have been confirmed for a production Celica. Camouflaged prototypes of the rally car have been testing this year, but it remains unclear how much of their bodywork will carry over to a road model.
Sources: Car and Driver.