When Toyota’s executive vice president Shigeki Tomoyama announced the Gazoo Racing (GR) brand in September 2017, he stressed that his team’s aim was to create extreme original super sports cars.
Then, in January 2018, at the Tokyo Auto Salon, we got to see what all those cryptic messages were about. Based on the body, chassis and powertrain of the “TS050 HYBRID,” Toyota’s Le Mans 24-hour race winning car, the outrageous GR Sports Concept was the star of the Salon. The fact that Toyota captured back-to-back victories at the legendary 24-hour race has given a strong tail wind to this project. The photos you see here were snapped at the Tokyo Auto Salon just after the Concept was unveiled.
Employing the Le Mans car’s carbon fiber monocoque and suspension setup, this concept is for all intents and purposes a road-going race car.
Okay let’s get into the juicy details. Generating over 1100 horsepower, the 4WD mid-engined 2.4-liter V6 twin turbo drives the rear wheels, while an electric motor setup propels the fronts. Due in GR showrooms in 2023, the brand has already started to approach “specially selected customers” with a price tag hovering between $2,000,000 to $3,000,000.
The GR hypercar’s closest rivals are the 769 horsepower hybrid Ferrari LaFerrari, the McLaren P1 with a 903 horsepower hybrid-electric powertrain and the 875 horsepower Porsche 918 Spyder with a gasoline-electric plug-in powertrain.
Although Toyota would not tell us the initial production run, they did say that the first lot has already been ‘spoken for’ and that the next lot of cars would be decided via a lottery. According to a source close to GR, the firm has actually had requests from inside and outside of Japan for the car, and at any price.
GR also says that it plans to periodically update the hyper car to keep it in tune with the current race technology. At the moment, Gazoo Racing is busy putting the car through its paces—in secret test sessions—at Toyota’s home track of Fuji Speedway, 90 minutes south of Tokyo.
Expect to see the final production version of the GR Sports Concept revealed at the Tokyo Auto Salon in January 2023. And have your checkbook ready, just in case a third lot comes up.
