► Toyota debuts new racing concept car at Goodwood
► Road and race on display (sort of)
► First revealed at 2022 Tokyo Auto Salon
Toyota Motor Corporation is plotting an all-new supercar – and we just got our best look at it. TMC hasn’t revealed any concrete details about it at all – but that didn’t stop the Japanese brand sending not one – but two – versions of the supercar up the Goodwood hill. How’s that for a teaser campaign?
Very little, but even with the camo on it’s clear these cars are related to the Toyota GR Concept revealed a few years ago. First shown at the 2022 Tokyo Auto Salon, the GR concept signalled Toyota’s future commitment to the GT3 class and doubled-down on its ‘race to road’ ethos – already shown with the GR Yaris. With that in mind, it’s likely the GT3 racecar was developed first, with the road car following in its wake.
Even with the camo on, we can make out the silhouette of the new car. It looks to be a front-engined, rear-wheel drive beast in a similar ilk to that of the Mercedes-AMG GT3 that’ll eventually be tussling with. Of course, it’ll really be front-mid-engined, as you can bet Toyota’s engineers have tried to improve the CoG as much as possible.
Listen to the videos and clips floating around on the internet, and it’s clearly packing a V8 under the long hood. If so, it could be one of two already existing engines: the 5.2-litre V8 engine that currently powers the Lexus RC F GT3, or the 5.0-litre V8 in the RC F road car. Of course, it could use an entirely new engine and could also operate with hybrid power in other trims.
Although the styling looks to have hallmarks of Lexus, it’s clearly based on the GR Concept under the camo – which was revealed as a Toyota. The finer details are obscured in the prototypes shown at Goodwood, but we can look at the concept for an educated guess. Expect a sharp light signature, angular lines and something that’s somewhere between a Supra and LFA. Not the worst place to be.
When released, we expect the race car to start alongside Toyota’s already successful Hypercar, the GR010. It’ll also see Toyota competing in WRC, both classes of Le Mans – and even with an involvement in F1 through the Haas team.
We’ll update this article when we know more.
Curtis Moldrich is CAR magazine’s Digital Editor and has worked for the brand for the past five years. He’s responsible for online strategy, including CAR’s website, social media channels such as X (formerly Twitter) and Facebook, and helps on wider platform strategy as CAR magazine branches out on to Apple News+ and more.
By Curtis Moldrich
CAR's Digital Editor, F1 and sim-racing enthusiast. Partial to clever tech and sports bikes