Back in 2015, Toyota teased us with the perfect car: The S-FR concept, a Miata-fighting two-door roadster set to be a little sibling to what was then the Scion FR-S. After that big reveal, the little car just vanished into thin air, never to be seen again except in my most beautiful and hopeful dreams. Now, though, it seems those winds could be changing once again. A new report out of Japan says that Toyota is thinking about finally bringing the S-FR to production.
The news comes from Japanese outlet Response, which said the S-FR could finally hit dealerships as early as 2027, though not quite as it was originally designed. Instead of being a Miata fighter, the new S-FR would be even smaller, built on the platform of a third-generation Daihatsu Copen. Daihatsu teased a new Copen with its K-Open concept last year (pictured below), and it wouldn’t be hard for Toyota to throw a bit of design work at its subsidiary’s kei car and bring a proper S-FR to market.
A new interpretation of the S-FR
Of course, a modern kei car would be a pretty substantial rework of the S-FR formula. Previous Copens have all been front-wheel drive, so shifting to a rear-wheel-drive platform to accommodate an S-FR twin would make it more of a sports car, too. The original concept was neither modern nor kei, with a 1.5-liter naturally-aspirated four-cylinder engine and a rear seat, the former of which would be impossible and the latter unlikely in a kei car. In fact, the whole design would need to shrink to meet kei car requirements, making it even less likely we’d get a version here in the States. Still, Toyota is already bringing us one kei, so maybe we can dream.
Even if it’s only for the Japanese market, I hope this report from Response is accurate and that Toyota is really thinking about bringing the S-FR to market as a Copen variant. It just makes sense — take your beloved-but-abandoned little sports car concept and apply it to your soon-to-be-resurrected little sports car platform. Maybe, if we’re really lucky, Toyota will bring some over to the States as the same sort of low-speed vehicle as the KEI-01. I’d happily tune a limiter out of one of these just to get to drive it.
