What brand comes to mind when we talk about sports? It certainly won't be the Toyota , but just flip through the pages of the brand's history and you will see a long history of sports cars.
And, perhaps, the richest period in this chapter was during the 80's and 90's, when Toyota presented us with a complete range of sports cars, with a crescendo of performance and positioning.
MR2, Celica and Supra they were the sports - from scratch - of the brand, in such a remarkable way that they came to be known as the “ Three brothers".
Well then, after almost two decades of absence, it seems that the "three brothers" are back, by "presidential decree". More seriously, it is the president of Toyota, Akio Toyoda, who is the main driver for the brand to return to a family of sports cars.
This is as confirmed by Tetsuya Tada, the chief engineer behind the Toyota GT86 and the new Toyota Supra. Tetsuya Tada made statements — not to the media, but to colleagues in the UK, where he was trying to frame the new Supra — that confirm, or nearly, the rumor:
Akio has always said that as a company, he would like to have Três Irmãos, with the GT86 in the middle and the Supra as the big brother. That's why we tried to aim for Supra that offered overwhelming superiority in all attributes.
The third "brother", still missing
If the GT86 is the middle brother (instead of the Celica), which has already been confirmed a successor, and the new Supra the big brother, then the little brother is missing. As some rumors have shown, Toyota is preparing a small sports car, a successor to the MR2 , rival of the unavoidable Mazda MX-5.
In 2015, at the Tokyo Motor Show, Toyota presented a prototype in this regard. Truth be told, as a prototype or concept car, the S-FR (see gallery below) had little, as it had all the “tics” of a production model, namely the presence of conventional mirrors and door knobs and a complete interior.
Unlike the MR2, the S-FR did not come with a mid-range rear engine. The engine — 1.5, 130 hp, without turbo — was placed longitudinally at the front, with its power transmitted to the rear wheels, just like the MX-5. The difference to the MX-5 lay in the bodywork, coupé, and the number of seats, with two small rear seats, despite the compact exterior dimensions.
Will Toyota recover this prototype, or is it preparing a direct successor to the “Midship Runabout 2-seater”?
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