Toyota Starlet hot hatch on wish list Toyota performance-car boss

The new boss of Toyota’s GR performance division wants to introduce a modern-day Toyota Starlet hot hatch.

A revival of the popular Toyota Starlet city hatch of the 1990s could be on the cards – if the new head of the Japanese car giant’s Gazoo Racing performance-car division gets his way.

The Starlet city hatchback – introduced locally in 1988 – has not been seen in Toyota showrooms in Australia, Japan and Europe since it was replaced in 1999 by the Yaris (initially sold here as the Echo before subsequent models adopted the global badge).

Now the new president of the Toyota Gazoo Racing division – which is responsible for the GR Yaris and GR Corolla hot hatchbacks, and GR86 and GR Supra sports coupes – says a revival of the city-car name is his “personal dream”.

“I used to enjoy snowy roads and mini circuits in my hometown of Hokkaido with my [early 1990s] EP82 and [late 1990s] EP91 [Starlets],” Toyota GR president Tomoya Takahashi told Japanese magazine Best Car.

“When the first-generation Civic Type R was introduced, I was shocked as a hot hatch driver, and I joined Toyota because I wanted to make a car that would surpass it.

“If President Sato is talking about ‘reviving the Celica’, my personal dream – putting aside my position as GR President – is to ‘revive the Starlet’,” the executive said.

The wording of Mr Takahashi’s comments – as a “dream” not associated with his position at Toyota – suggests there are no firm plans to revive the Starlet badge for global markets.

For two decades the Yaris has been Toyota’s nameplate in the city-car segment, recently surpassing 10 million sales since its 1999 launch – and in 2020 spawning a high-performance GR Yaris hot hatch with 200kW and all-wheel drive.

Africa’s Suzuki Baleno-based Toyota Starlet.

Toyota does still sell a Starlet in some parts of Africa, however it is a rebadged version of the Indian-made Suzuki Baleno, and not a Toyota-designed vehicle.

Mr Takahashi become the president of Toyota Gazoo Racing on March 1, after previous GR boss Koji Sato was promoted to Toyota president and CEO, replacing Akio Toyoda – the executive who over the past 14 years rebuilt Toyota’s reputation for sporty, fun-to-drive cars.

Koji Sato and Akio Toyoda have previously spoken of their desire to revive the iconic Toyota Celica sports-car nameplate, last seen in showrooms in 2006.

There have been sporty versions of older Toyota Starlets in Japan – including the ‘EP82’ Starlet GT Turbo of 1990, with a 99kW 1.3-litre turbo engine, and the P90-series Starlet Glanza of 1996, available with a 103kW 1.3-litre turbo engine.

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