Secret Subaru and Toyota hot hatch rumoured on the way

Word is Toyota and Subaru are teaming up on another sports car, with online rumours positing a turbocharged all-wheel-drive hatch is on track for a 2022 reveal.

Automotive publication Best Car in Japan has broken the news, citing the project will be based on the Impreza hatch, relying heavily on its signature Boxer engine, symmetrical all-wheel-drive layout.

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Power is alleged to come from a 2.4-litre turbocharged horizontally opposed four-cylinder engine, possibly derived from the FA24 that will feature in the updated Subaru BRZ/Toyota 86.

This also means, reportedly, the project will not borrow the GR Yaris’s multi-plate centre differential all-wheel-drive system.

It’s hard to place just where the new project will fall into either manufacturer’s current product lines, given these fundamentals sound a lot like what Subaru has planned for the next WRX and WRX STI.

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But it’s thought that perhaps this could be Toyota’s next-generation Celica, a nameplate retired in 2006, since the model name was trademarked as recently as January 2021 in America.

While the late seventh-generation Celica did not sport any fire-breathing all-paw turbo variant within its ranks, the WRC-conquering Celica GT-Four from the sixth generation sets a fitting precedent.

The ST205 series Celica employed a 187kW turbo four-cylinder engine bolted to all-wheel-drive and WRC homologation specific hardware.

There is thinking that this new project might also keep Subaru performance cars in Europe, albeit with a Toyota badge, after Subaru decided to withdraw the BRZ from the continent and leave it to the 86.

While it’s fanciful to predict timings around something we’ve heard so little of, it’s alleged the new Subaru and Toyota developed project will appear in November 2022.