The Toyota bZ is, by all definitions, fine. It is An Car. The latest revision is even a mildly quick car. But it's not exactly a cool car, or a car that children will put posters of on their bedroom walls and stare wide-eyed at when they get the rare opportunity to see one at a car show. So, for this year's SEMA show, Toyota is fixing that by giving the bland bZ a full time-attack makeover inside and out. Finally, a bZ that's actually cool.
The creatively-named bZ Time Attack concept gives the little electric crossover a widebody kit and a full suite of track-ready aero. There's a massive front splitter paired with a huge rear wing, big side skirts, and even a rear diffuser that sticks out from the bumper. Toyota says the car sits a full six inches lower than its stock sibling thanks to a set of Tein coilovers, and it rides on 19-inch BBS wheels shod with 305-section tires. This is almost certainly the best-handling bZ in the world, and its beefed-up brakes likely make it the best at stopping too.
Under the hood, changes are more minor. Toyota claims to have increased the stock car's 338 horsepower to "over 400," a number that's intriguingly vague yet realistically close to the stock output — if this extra power all comes from ECU tuning, rather than any hardware changes, Toyota probably isn't getting 1,000 extra horses out of the car. 400 horsepower isn't a ton, especially pulling against the drag from that added aero, but it's not nothing either. Everyone's perennial track favorite Miata has certainly never hit such a figure.
The time attack bZ also gets a fully stripped out interior, with only a custom rollcage and a pair of fixed-back seats gracing the otherwise featureless white void between the doors. It's true race car material, the kind of build I'd like to see hit a track at some point — preferably with me behind the wheel, because tracking a high-downforce EV sounds like a blast. Unfortunately for all of us, though, this is just a SEMA build. It'll never grace our local dealer floors, which is a true shame. The only thing less cool than building a boring car, is building exactly one cool variant to prove it's possible and then locking it up in a garage somewhere.