Is Toyota preparing more sporty heroes? New inline engines leave the door open to reborn Toyota Celica and new S-FR coupes

Toyota’s new sports car revolution might be about to erupt.

Rumours have been swirling about a range of new sports cars from the Japanese giant that would bring back the glory days of the 1980s.

Adding fuel to the fire was the joint announcement earlier this year from Toyota, Subaru and Mazda that they were working on a range of new petrol engines, an odd move in the age of increasing electrification.

A new video posted to YouTube by the company shows the three businesses' respective CEOs detailing the future of the low-emissions engines.

It said Toyota was in charge of developing new inline engines, Subaru its classic horizontally opposed engine and Mazda is reworking its rotary engine to make them more compatible with electrification.

Now Toyota has shown off its new inline four-cylinder engines: one is a 2.0-litre unit and the other a 1.5-litre unit.

Toyota boss Koji Sato said in the video the company wants to bring its engines into the carbon-neutral era.

“We want to refine Toyota’s new inline four-cylinder engines and develop them into powertrains to create diverse cars in this carbon-neutrality era,” said Sato.

“The inline four cylinder has been refined over its long history. Its simple structure and flexible installation allow it to support a diverse product line-up from family cars to sports cars.”

Japanese outlet Best Car, which is known for its well-placed Toyota sources, has previously claimed the reborn Celica would use the 2.0-litre turbocharged four-cylinder engine - just revealed - paired with a hybrid set-up for an astounding 300kW.

Toyota S-FR render. (Source: Best Car)

It is also believed a production version of the S-FR concept from the 2015 Tokyo motor show could become a reality.

This Mazda Mx-5 rivalling mini sports car could use the smaller 1.5-litre engine paired with hybrid power.

Toyota engineers said they had made the new engine more compact than before, which gives it more potential to fit in a bite-sized sports car.

Outputs for the S-FR are expected to be around 110kW and 220Nm from the engine, which will be mounted at the front with a driveshaft powering the rear wheels.

Toyota Chief Engineer Hiroki Nakajima said the company had learned a lot from doing full battery electric vehicles (BEVs).

“By doing BEVs we understood not only how to use batteries, but using it as a range extender,” he said.

“We only considered hybrid as compensating for engine inefficiency, but that has changed.”