Could It Be? Is This 2027 World Rally Car the Next Toyota Celica?

With the way Toyota and Gazoo Racing (GR) have been making news with performance road and race cars, it’s easy to get excited when a camouflaged competition car is caught screaming along a test circuit. Of course, we’re more accustomed to seeing such cars on a closed racetrack, but a recent test session in Portugal revealed Toyota and GR testing a new coupe-bodied rally car. Since then, rumors have swirled, and many expect the car seen here to represent the next Toyota Celica. There’s just a slight catch, however, and it has to do with the 2027 World Rally Championship (WRC) rules.

As much as we hope this is indeed a WRC Celica caught testing by Rallye Sport on X, the 2027 rules leave a lot open to interpretation when it comes to WRC car bodies. Unlike years past, the rules for next year will allow any vehicle body style to be attached to a unified safety cell. The only requirement for the body is to fit within a 161.4–169.3-inch length, with a maximum width of 73.8 inches. There will also be simpler aerodynamic parts on these new cars, as this Toyota test vehicle demonstrates with its simplified wing, hood openings, and mirrors.

Further, all WRC27 cars will use a specified A-arm suspension with braking and steering systems borrowed from Rally2 regulations (four-piston brake calipers with 11.80–13.97-inch rotors, and hydraulically assisted power rack-and-pinion steering with 1.5 turns lock to lock). Similarly, the engines are regulated to a 1.6-liter turbocharged I-4 with power routed through a five-speed manual transmission and four-wheel drive.

Essentially, WRC27 cars are designed to be simpler and cheaper to run. The FIA—the governing body of international motorsports—says these cars should cost around 50 percent less than today’s Rally1-class cars in tarmac specification. But the cost reduction will also go beyond just the cars, as reduced personnel, decreased logistics support, and remote engineering support will be utilized for the next season.

This has also opened the door to “tuners” and those who want to build bespoke rally car bodies, which is why this Toyota might not be the next Celica or even any particular production-related model at all. We could very well merely be seeing a custom body made by GR and intended to be just for the WRC car and not ever used on a production model. But we also can’t dash our hopes of this being the next Celica, either. Back in May 2025, Cooper Ericksen, senior vice president of product planning and strategy for Toyota North America, told us, “Bottom line is we are working on a product that could theoretically go by the Celica name if we can figure out how to pull it off and it gets approved.”

Even if this car is only a WRC competition vehicle, it will eventually gain a name, and common sense says it will likely be tied to some sort of production car or historic name, if simply for marketing purposes. And if it does end up being a Celica, let’s also hope for a Castrol livery to really relive our Sega Rally Championship arcade fantasies.