Toyota has long been hinting at a new performance flagship, and at last, it has pulled the covers off properly what it has envisioned that to be.
Debuting under its performance offshoot, Toyota Gazoo Racing (TGR), the GR GT and GR GT3 have proudly made its world premiere for the first time via under-development prototypes.
The GR GT — TGR’s new flagship sports car — was conceptualised and developed as a road-legal race car, which means it’s packed with power.
This comes in the form of a hybrid system that pairs a newly developed 4.0-litre, twin-turbo V8 engine with a single electric motor.
Both cough up a maximum system output of 641bhp and 850Nm of torque. It also comes with a newly developed eight-speed automatic transmission.
Toyota has stated that these values might rise, given that the car is still very much not the finished product yet.
The car also adopts a front-engine, rear-wheel drive powertrain layout for ease of handling, with the lower positioning of heavy components such as the engine for a lower centre of gravity.
In addition, with one key element of the GR GT’s development being “low weight with high rigidity”, Toyota has slapped on its first all-aluminium body frame to achieve this, along with the use of carbon fibre reinforced plastic (CFRP) and other lightweight materials in the GR GT’s body panels.
And what’s a proper zoomer without strong aerodynamic performance? With attention conventionally given to aerodynamics only after finalisation of the exterior styling, Toyota has bucked the trend with first establishing the GR GT’s ideal aerodynamic performance, then moving on to the cosmetics part. The result is styling that pursues both aerodynamic and cooling performance.
With all this talk about the car’s body components, Toyota has also given equal consideration to the inside of the GR GT. Interior styling was meticulously crafted without compromise, based on ergonomics aimed at achieving the optimal driving position from a professional driver’s perspective, and visibility needed for at-the-limit driving.
Now for the GR GT3, described as a new GR GT-based, FIA GT3-spec race car that also inherits all the good qualities of the aforementioned GR GT.
According to Toyota, the GR GT3 aims to be a car chosen by those who yearn for victory and — based on TGR’s driver-first principle — easy to drive.
Like other GR models, Toyota states that the GR GT and GR GT3 have been repeatedly honed, driven to failure, and repaired to make them into models that will live up to all drivers’ expectations.
As it accelerates its efforts to make “ever-better cars”, TGR is continuing development of the GR GT and GR GT3 toward launching them around 2027. Further details are to be released as they become available.
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This article was first published in sgCarMart.
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