The Celica Is Back — as a Rally Car: Toyota's GR Celica Rally1 Leads a Two-Team WRC Attack for 2027
The Celica name is officially back in world rallying: on November 3, Toyota GAZOO Racing announced that its 2027 World Rally Championship attack will be led by a new GR Celica Rally1, as Toyota splits its factory effort into two teams and two different cars with up to six entries per rally. Ott Tänak and Kalle Rovanperä both return to Toyota for 2027, joining newly crowned 2026 world champion Elfyn Evans. What Toyota has not announced is a road car: no shape, power figure, drivetrain or production plan for a street Celica exists yet, and this post will not pretend otherwise.
Two Teams, Two Cars, Six Entries
From 2027, the continuing TGR-WRT operation fields two separately named teams, both scoring manufacturers' points as equal contenders. The GR Celica Rally1 runs under the TOYOTA Racing banner with Evans and Scott Martin, Oliver Solberg and Elliott Edmondson, and Sami Pajari and Enni Mälkönen. The GR Yaris Rally1 continues under GAZOO Racing TOYOTA with Tänak and Martin Järveoja, Rovanperä and Jonne Halttunen, and Takamoto Katsuta and Aaron Johnston. Nine-time champion Sébastien Ogier remains in the GAZOO Racing family and could make selected appearances. Both cars are being developed in parallel at Toyota's Finnish base in Jyväskylä, and Toyota closed a six-day prototype test in central Finland — simulating a full rally — on the day of the announcement.
Three World Champions in One Squad
Evans arrives as the reigning champion, having secured the 2026 drivers' title at the season-ending Rally Italia Sardegna. Tänak returns seven years after winning the 2019 world title with Toyota — he and Järveoja won ten WRC rounds across 2018–2019 — and Rovanperä, the youngest champion in WRC history in 2022 and champion again in 2023, returns after a year away, on a selected-events programme for 2027. The supporting cast is in form, too: Solberg and Pajari each claimed three victories in 2026, and Katsuta took his maiden WRC wins in Kenya and Croatia and became the first Japanese driver to lead the championship standings.
Why the Celica Name Carries Weight
The Celica was the car that built Toyota's rally reputation in the 1990s: drivers' titles for Carlos Sainz in 1990 and 1992, Juha Kankkunen in 1993 and Didier Auriol in 1994. Toyota is reviving the name more than three decades later as the WRC enters its new WRC27 technical era — a deliberate piece of heritage signalling, attached to a rally car first. That ordering matters for enthusiasts watching for a showroom version: the nameplate's return is real, but it is a competition return.
So, Is There a Road Car?
Not that Toyota has confirmed. Reporting on the announcement is explicit that the rally car's own details — shape, power, drivetrain layout, even seat count — have not been announced, let alone a production model's. Rally homologation arithmetic is not a road-car announcement, and years of Celica rumours have taught everyone in this hobby to wait for a Toyota press release with a price and a production date before celebrating. If and when that release comes, it will be one of the biggest GR stories of the decade — the GR Corolla and GR86 have proven the audience is there. Until then, the honest headline is the one Toyota actually wrote: the Celica is back where it made its name, in the forests, in 2027. Follow the current GR range in our GR Corolla modification guide.