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Raise your hand if you saw this coming. Toyota is considering a potent SUV for its growing Gazoo Racing lineup of performance vehicles. The GR Sport visual treatment has already been applied to multiple products, but a full-fledged high-riding performance model isn't in dealerships. Well, not yet. That's likely to change in the future.
Speaking with Australian magazine Car Expert, GR boss Tomoya Takahashi argued an SUV is a necessity: "In the future, from my point of view, we need a GR SUV. Some people can only use SUVs because they have a family or need space. To expand our brand, maybe an SUV is needed."
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He declined to go into details about which model could get the GR treatment. However, it would be one of the larger SUVs since the Yaris Cross and C-HR aren't all that spacious. We'd also rule out the bZ4X. Our money is on the Land Cruiser, be it the LC 250 / Prado we get in the United States and/or the big-boy LC300 (pictured here) sold in select markets. Perhaps a GR RAV4 would also make sense to sit above the 302-horsepower Prime with its 0-60 mph in just 5.7 seconds.
Takahashi mentioned that Gazoo Racing needs to identify the right model for a future expansion of the portfolio since its resources are limited. It can't launch multiple products in a short time due to budget restraints. For the time being, the Yaris, Corolla, 86, and Supra are offered in full-fat GR guise. Only the supermini has spawned a hotter GRMN derivative, which is also planned for the BMW-esque coupe.
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We're a bit surprised it took Toyota so long to realize a lifted GR would make sense. Mainstream automakers have been selling amped-up iterations of their SUV for years. A relevant example is Volkswagen with its T-Roc R, Tiguan R, and Touareg R, while Hyundai and Kia have the Ioniq 5 N and EV6 GT, respectively.
Whether the GR branding has become desirable enough to warrant the premium a beefier SUV would command, customers will have to decide with their hard-earned money.