Yes, it’s a Toyota GR86 with a turbocharged engine and all-wheel drive, and no, you can’t have one. Toyota is winding us up with the GR86 Rally Legacy concept, a car that proves that it could build an ultimate GR86 if it wanted to.
“The GR86 Rally Legacy Concept is a testament to Toyota’s enduring passion for rally racing. We did this build for our GR and Toyota Rally fans — it’s a fantasy car come to life, our way of celebrating our past achievements and the possibility of the World Rally Championship making a return to the United States,” said Mike Tripp, group vice president, Toyota Marketing.
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Toyota says that “grumblings of the return of the World Rally Championship to the United States” inspired it to take a look back at its early ’90s rally history. And it looked back at the Celica GT-Four cars, or Celica All-Tracs as they were badged here, that took home almost two dozen World Rally Championship event wins when they were at their best.
It starts with the 1.6L turbo-three from the GR Corolla and GR Yaris. The engine makes 300 horsepower stock, but Toyota said that thanks to a new ECU, new intercooler, and upgraded oil cooler there was headroom for more power by way of tuning.
The hard work wasn’t fitting the inline-three under the hood, though it does look funny so far forward in the engine bay. It fitted the spindles and axles from the GR Corolla in the front and added the car’s rear axles in the back. It required new subframes and engine mounts, special coil-over shocks, and custom control arms.
Toyota Remembers Rally History as Fondly as We Do
Toyota’s Halo White paint with the green and red stripes, which it wore in the ’90s as part of the team’s Castrol sponsorship, looks great on the modern GR86.
To show that it’s really rally-ready, the cabin has been stripped out, and Toyota dropped in some Sparco racing seats and a full cage.
Of course, now we know that Toyota can do it, it’s time to start pushing them to make it so. The GR86 and its 2.4L boxer four with 232 horsepower makes for a great-driving car. But all-wheel drive, 300 horses, and a GR-Four (or STI for Subaru’s BRZ) badge would just be the icing on the sports car cake.
