Toyota looking to partner up for reborn MR2

Tuesday, 26 October 2021

The awesome little Toyota MR2 has been linked with a comeback for a while now.

Toyota is reportedly gearing up to bring back the MR2 mid-engined sports car, but it doesn’t want to go alone. Like the Supra, Toyota wants to partner with another maker for the MR2, with potential names including Porsche and Lotus.

Using a platform from either of those brands is an obvious choice, considering Toyota doesn’t have anything that could work in a mid-engined configuration. The relationship with Lotus is already there, with the British brand using Toyota V6s in most of its offerings.

The MR-S looked a little like the 986-generation Porsche Boxster. Perhaps the links will go deeper this time around?

According to Japanese publication Spyder7, the car will use a 2.8 or 3.0-litre V6 mounted behind the cabin with plug-in hybrid extras. All in, the system would generate nearly 300kW, putting it right on par with the new Nissan Z and upcoming Subaru WRX STi.

That’s also around 25kW more than the Supra, which is enough to doubt the rumour. Or that part, at least.

Apparently, the new MR2 will make around 300kW from a plug-in hybrid V6 powertrain. We’re not so sure.

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Should that power figure be accurate, there are two potential reasons. BMW is finally letting Toyota have some fun with the 375kW engine from the M3 and M4, putting the Supra back on top of the power sheets, or Toyota is angling the MR2 as its new flagship model.

The latter is more likely, considering Spyder7 quotes a projected kick-off price of six million yen (NZ$73,581 directly converted). Compare that to Supra’s starting price of 4.995 million yen (NZ$61,253 – but remember this is the 2.0-litre turbo four-cylinder stripper version we don’t get in NZ).

But even that is a hard sell. The Supra has always been the head of Toyota’s table, it doesn’t make much sense to change it up now. And the Supra has a hard enough time shifting units at its current price, imagine the backlash of a Toyota costing well over the $100k mark!

According to the Japanese report, we could see the new MR2 as soon as 2024. But with a few holes in the theory, we wouldn’t be surprised if it doesn’t arrive until the second half of the decade.