Toyota’s Forgotten Baby Sports Car May Return Even Smaller

Toyota is reportedly weighing a production S-FR, reborn as a rear-wheel-drive kei car built to Japan’s micro-car rules, for as early as 2027.

The car would be far smaller than the S-FR concept that Toyota showed at the 2015 Tokyo Motor Show and never built. The report describes a turbocharged 660cc three-cylinder engine making about 64 horsepower, a choice of a five-speed manual or a CVT, and power sent only to the rear wheels. Toyota has not announced the car, and neither Toyota nor Daihatsu has confirmed any plan to build it.

The details come from the scoop team at Response, a Japanese automotive news site, which published its report on November 11, and Toyota has not confirmed the plan. Motor1 picked up the story on November 13 and cautioned that the 2027 timing "should be treated with caution."

The size Response expects for the new S-FR is about 3,395 millimeters long, 1,475 mm wide and 1,230 mm tall, on a 2,265 mm wheelbase, which Motor1 converts to 133.7 inches long, 58.1 inches wide and 48.4 inches tall on an 89.2-inch wheelbase. That would make it 595 mm shorter and 220 mm narrower than the 2015 concept, which measured 3,990 mm long, 1,695 mm wide and 1,320 mm tall on a 2,480 mm wheelbase. The concept was a four-seat coupe with its engine mounted behind the front axle, rear-wheel drive and a six-speed manual, and its round headlights and big grille were a nod to Toyota’s little Sports 800.

The strongest clue behind the report sits at Daihatsu, the Toyota-owned kei car specialist that already supplies the kei cars Toyota sells in Japan. Daihatsu showed a concept called the K-OPEN at the 2025 Japan Mobility Show as a preview of the next Copen, and it switched that small roadster from front-wheel drive to rear-wheel drive. The K-OPEN’s dimensions match the reported S-FR figures exactly, down to the millimeter, and Motor1 puts its weight at 850 kilograms, or 1,874 pounds. The K-OPEN is a two-seater, while the 2015 S-FR seated four, and Response says the final seat count is still undecided and will shape where the car sits in Toyota’s lineup.

Daihatsu has gone beyond a show car. It built a drivable test car, the K-OPEN Running Proto, which reuses existing engine and drivetrain parts and is 1,280 mm tall on a 2,230 mm wheelbase, to study a low center of gravity and better front-to-rear weight balance. A second version, the K-OPEN Running Proto 2, appeared at the Tokyo Auto Salon in January 2026. Daihatsu calls these preliminary studies, not confirmed production cars.

Response suggests the two brands could split the idea, with the Copen returning as an open-top roadster and the S-FR sold as a fixed-roof coupe, but it notes that no shared platform or joint development has been officially announced. The report also says Toyota has not revealed the car’s weight, engine position or suspension design. Response positions a kei S-FR as a more attainable rear-drive sports car than the GR86, which joins the GR Yaris and GR Corolla in Toyota’s current sports car lineup.

A kei car built to Japan’s rules would be a Japanese-market model, and nothing in either report says it would be sold in the United States. Toyota did announce this week that it is reviving the Scion brand to bring a kei truck to America, which Motor1 noted when it wondered whether an S-FR could wear a Scion badge.

The Toyota Report Take

We like the idea far more than the numbers. Sixty-four horsepower sounds like a joke next to a GR86, but a car this small and light with a manual and rear-wheel drive would deliver the kind of slow-car-fast fun that is almost impossible to buy new anymore, and building it alongside the next Copen is the only way a car like this pencils out. The catch for American readers is obvious, since kei cars live and die by Japanese tax and size rules. Still, Toyota just showed it is willing to bring a kei vehicle here under the Scion name, so a tiny rear-drive coupe for the US is no longer completely unthinkable, even if we would not bet on it yet.