The Toyota Celica is heading back to the World Rally Championship. Toyota will field the new GR Celica Rally1 in 2027 alongside a new GR Yaris Rally1, giving the Japanese manufacturer two factory teams and two different cars in the same championship.
Defending champion Elfyn Evans will lead the Toyota Racing Celica line-up alongside Oliver Solberg and Sami Pajari. The GR Yaris will run under the Gazoo Racing Toyota banner with Ott Tänak, Takamoto Katsuta and Kalle Rovanperä, who will contest selected rounds. Toyota says both cars will have equal power and performance under the new WRC regulations.
What We Know About a Toyota GR Celica Road Car
Toyota’s announcement confirms the rally car. A showroom Celica still has no official launch date or specifications. The 2027 WRC rules allow teams to build purpose-made rally cars around a tubular chassis, so Toyota can bring the name back to competition without putting a corresponding road car on sale.
The more telling clue is the GR Yaris M Concept, a mid-engined prototype Toyota showed at the 2025 Tokyo Auto Salon and later raced in Japan. Evo reports that a production sports car could use Toyota’s G20E 2.0-litre turbocharged four-cylinder with around 400 hp (298 kW) and all-wheel drive. The final layout is still open, including whether it will be a two-seater or a 2+2.
Why Toyota Keeps Building GR Performance Cars
The original GR Yaris is a good example of how Akio Toyoda has shaped the division. It began as a road car Toyota needed for rally homologation. When the rules changed and that requirement fell away, Toyoda kept the project going. The GT86 and Supra took a different route, with Toyota working with Subaru and BMW respectively to bring those cars to market. The Celica already has a place on the 2027 WRC grid. The question now is what Toyota will make of the name for the road.