The affordable sports car is far from dead, but there are a lot fewer offerings than there used to be. The Mazda MX-5 Miata, the quintessential cheap performance vehicle, still exists. So do its competitors, the Subaru BRZ/Toyota GR86 twins. The hot hatch game in the US is pretty good right now as well, at least relatively. The Golf GTI, the cornerstone of the segment, is still around, as is its quicker sibling, the Golf R. The GR Corolla and the Honda Civic Type R are available, too, as are the value-minded Hyundai Elantra N and Civic Si, in case you prefer sedans.
The affordable mid-engine performance car segment hasn’t been as lucky. That area of the market, which used to include budget-minded performance machines like the Pontiac Fiero, the Fiat X1/9, and the Toyota MR2, has essentially dried up. The cheapest new mid-engine car you can buy right now is the Chevy Corvette, which starts at $71,995.
This trend isn’t entirely surprising. With automakers increasingly aiming to improve margins and lower costs, sports cars—which cost a lot to develop and usually sell in low numbers—are always the first to go. Developing a mid-engine sports car is especially costly, as it requires extra engineering and a standalone platform that can’t be used anywhere else in the lineup.
Why Is Toyota The Carmaker That Can Do It?
One reason is its history. Toyota has already built three generations of MR2, starting in 1984 with the blocky W10, before moving to the more smoothly designed W20 in 1989, and then the W30 in 1999. Production ended in 2007, marking what I’d call the end of the affordable mid-engine segment. That means the company already has the institutional knowledge required to approach such a project. Sure, it hasn’t done anything like this in 18 years, but still, it’s better than starting from scratch.
That being said, Toyota is doing this sort of low-volume performance stuff already, to an extent. The reason it can tackle a new MR2 project is the same reason it can justify building cars like the GR Yaris, the GR Corolla, the GR Supra, and its upcoming GR GT supercar: It’s an absolutely gargantuan company that can easily absorb the added costs.
The sheer volume of cars like the RAV4—which, as a reminder, was the best-selling car on Earth last year—means Toyota doesn’t have to worry as much about making a big profit on a two-door, rear-drive coupe that only a few thousand people a year will buy. Honda, for example, might not be able to take those same liberties, since it’s a smaller manufacturer that can’t disperse the costs as widely.
There’s also Toyota’s attitude. Toyota doesn’t have to build an array of sports cars, much less a halo car or a cheap mid-engine machine. It did just fine for years without such a vehicle in its U.S. lineup, after all. But because the executives at the top of the pyramid are enthusiasts who want to see fun cars from their brand, they make them happen. There’s chairman Akio Toyoda, of course, who loved racing so much that he famously raced in the Nürburgring 24 under a pseudonym. But company CEO Koji Sato, who was appointed in 2023, is also a hardcore car guy.
Yeah, Okay, But Will Toyota Do It?
There’s been a lot of evidence over the past few years to suggest the company might actually move forward with an MR2 revival. Rumors have been flying about the car’s return in earnest since 2019, when Car and Driver suggested it might return as an EV.
Speculators and fans of Mr. 2 on the internet got particularly excited in 2023, when Toyota took the sheets off the FT-Se concept, an all-electric sports car with mid-engine proportions. Then, earlier this year, the company revealed the GR Yaris M concept, a GR Yaris with its engine mounted in the middle.
While car companies don’t often build running, driving prototypes just for the fun of it, it’s important not to come to conclusions just yet. Remember Hyundai’s series of mid-engine Veloster hatchback concepts? The first one debuted all the way back in 2014, and the company still hasn’t come up with anything for production.
That being said, the news of Toyota acquiring patents does add some fuel to the fire. Japanese language news site Creative Trend spotted local patent applications for GR MR2 and GR MR-S (MR-S being the third-gen car’s name in Japan). Automakers file patents for names they never use all the time, of course, so this isn’t definitive proof Toyota’s plotting the MR2’s return.
But once you factor in Toyota’s position in the market, the years of rumors, and the existence of that Yaris prototype, things start to get more interesting. In any case, I’m optimistic.
Top graphic image: Toyota
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