Rumors have been fly­ing about a new per­for­mance ori­ented Toy­ota sports car hit­ting the per­for­mance scene for a con­sid­er­able time now, from an AE86 revival to a new Supra, but per­haps no one expected news that these shad­owy rumors would coa­lesce into the for­got­ten Cel­ica GT-​​4.

The last model Cel­ica. Will we see styling cues from this?

But per­haps even more sur­pris­ing is the rumor that the car will be engi­neered to a large degree by Sub­aru. In Novem­ber Toy­ota con­firmed rumours of a new sports car and Cel­ica replace­ment, with the sports car being a col­lab­o­ra­tion between Sub­aru and Toy­ota, and now it seems the car is the per­for­mance model of the Cel­ica line. How­ever, the new car will not come with a Toy­ota bred turbo four in the tra­di­tion of the (some­what) under­pow­ered motor of the old model — instead it’s going to be car­ry­ing a Sub­aru Boxer turbo, most recently seen in the all grown up Sub­aru Impreza WRX STi.

The new model is said to come in two dis­tinct per­for­mance vari­ants. First, the base ‘GT’, pack­ing a front engined, RWD dri­ve­train and nat­u­rally aspi­rated 2.0L 4 cylin­der Boxer (most likely from the Impreza RX), designed to slide in under the $20,000 bracket. Sec­ondly the full fat GT-​​4, which car­ries the new JDM STi’s 224KW (300HP) Boxer turbo and AWD sys­tem stan­dard, with Motor Trend claim­ing the engine will be closer to the cars fire­wall in order to facil­i­tate the instal­la­tion of in-​​wheel elec­tric motors to help with traction.

The GT and GT-​​4 will be built in in coupe and three-​​door hatch vari­ants, but no five door vari­ants because of Toy­ota and Sub­aru not want­ing to com­pete in the Impreza’s arena, which is rather tongue in cheek con­sid­er­ing this new car will inevitably be seen as either a Impreza in Toy­ota cloth­ing, or as direct com­pe­ti­tion by tuners. This begs the ques­tion then; will the new GT-​​4 be a real con­tender in the hotly con­tested price for per­for­mance bracket? Will the Toy­ota be lighter, faster, and more capa­ble than the new STi? Would Sub­aru shoot them­selves in the foot, and does it mat­ter con­sid­er­ing Toyota’s widen­ing stake in Sub­aru?

Does this mean Sub­aru will become more and more the per­for­mance arm of Toy­ota? Time will tell, but we cer­tainly hope not.

It looks like we can expect a new CR-​​X coupe at the Tokyo Motor Show. In fact, Wind­ing Road says we can go the unusual step of say­ing this car will see pro­duc­tion! Fea­tur­ing a svelte, almost Volvo-​​esque front, curves that seem to evolve from the old CR-​​X, neat dual exhausts and 19’s, the pos­si­bly hybrid CR-​​Z would make a wel­come addi­tion to Honda’s line up.

What do we want to see in this?

• 1.8L VTEC, or just the MUGEN RR’s powerplant
• RWD or if we’re really talk­ing fan­tasy, AWD
• 6 speed manual
• 1100kg’s or less

Devel­op­ment has been pro­gress­ing behind the scenes in the new ‘AE86’ with JDM lovers 7tune releas­ing some tan­ta­liz­ing details about Sub­aru and Toyota’s new ‘AE86’ col­lab­o­ra­tion, called sim­ply the ‘Light­weight Sports Car’. It seems the light­weight RWD coupe is in the devel­op­ment stage, and Toy­ota believes they can get this new car con­cept to mar­ket by next year.

New ‘AE86’?

The car is appar­ently being aimed at the under 2,000,000 yen mark. In itself this is inter­est­ing because typ­i­cally, a JDM RWD coupe could very eas­ily exceed this. Keep­ing this in mind, cost is the rea­son for the car’s 1.5L (EL15) DOHC flat-​​four engine. This DOHC engine puts out a very ho-​​hum 110ps @ 6,400rpm and 14.7kg/m @ 3,200rpm, and is a cheap, cost effec­tive motor. Know­ing this, Toy­ota wants the car to be under 1100kg to pro­vide any sort of performance.

The test mule cur­rently sports a 200mm shorter ver­sion of the Legacy chas­sis, 4WD run­ning gear (minus front drive), dou­ble wish­bone sus­pen­sion, and a Subau dif­fer­en­tial. How­ever, 7tune tells us the dif­fer­en­tial is a weak link, and it is more likely we will see the Impreza 15S plat­form over any fur­ther vari­a­tions of the Legacy platform.

The aspect of this car that con­fuses us is that EL15 engine and it’s dis­mal out­put. Why? Both Sub­aru and Toy­ota have plenty of expe­ri­ence in mak­ing decent power DOHC motors in the 2.0L range, and in mak­ing light vehi­cles when they wish. Cost is a fac­tor, but one has to won­der if the new col­lab­o­ra­tion wouldn’t be bet­ter served by adding 500,000 yen and giv­ing us a more potent motor, even if it’s a sourced tur­bod­iesel, like the new Boxer TDi.

Per­haps Sub­aru and Toy­ota are using the EL15 only to deter us, and have some­thing more potent in the works. Some­thing along the lines of the Mugen Civic RR’s 177kW N/​A — or even ditch­ing N/​A for a tur­bocharged flat four. Per­haps add a few pounds to sort out the rear end, dri­ve­train mechan­ics and chas­sis strength — the extra weight would eas­ily be accounted for with greatly increased power.

Per­haps Toy­ota has for­got how to make a sports car in the long years since the Supra, and even longer years since the AE86.

[Source: 7Tune]