New Toyota Celica Rumoured As A 400bhp AWD Luxury Coupe

First MR2, then Starlet, then S-FR, plus its upcoming GT3 homologation special – just when we thought it wasn’t possible for Toyota to be linked to any more possible performance car projects, rumours are being stirred that a possible return of the Toyota Celica is on the cards, too.

As with many of these other reports, it comes from Japanese publication Best Car. The reports are coming off the back of Toyota’s continued dedication to keep developing internal combustion engines, one of which is thought to be a 2.0-litre, turbocharged four-cylinder, a prototype of which was displayed in January.

Best Car reckons that, in the spirit of the old high-performance, four-wheel drive Celica GT-Four, that engine could wind up sending power to all four wheels in a new-generation Celica, making around 395bhp.

The report also states that it could go in a more luxurious direction than past Celicas, specifically mentioning the Audi Quattro as a possible source of inspiration. Perhaps most tantalisingly, should these rumours turn out to be true, Best Car suggests we could see a concept version of the car as early as the Tokyo Auto Salon in January 2025.

The Celica was first launched in 1970 as a compact, rear-drive coupe based on the same platform as the Carina saloon. It ran for seven generations, switching to a front-drive platform for the fourth-gen in 1985, with the first version of the four-wheel drive, turbocharged GT-Four following shortly after.

The name died off in 2006 with the seventh-gen car, but rumours of a comeback have come and gone ever since (indeed, the conceptually similar US-market Scion tC stuck around until 2016).

As usual, this rumour shouldn’t be taken for anything approaching fact until we hear anything official from Toyota, but we’re choosing to keep our fingers crossed that, in a few years, there’ll be a dizzying array of Toyota performance cars on sale.