With less than a month until the Goodwood Festival of Speed you can expect plenty of news stories over the next few weeks around what will be there. And while Toyota isn't planning to steal the show with a real
flagship GT86
- we live in hope - it is bringing six cars in some very cool motorsport liveries.
Ultron Supra GT86 looks grrrrreat. Sorry
Hands up, we didn't recognise them all immediately. The Castrol car is the most familiar, clearly inspired by the Celica and Corolla WRC cars of the 90s. The #99 car, red with yellow stripes and gold wheels, was also noticed as an evocation of the IMSA Celica from the early 80s.
If anyone does know all of the cars, congratulations on having a comprehensive knowledge of Toyota's motorsport successes. Not quite so clued up? Here's the history lesson...
The GT86 with the tiger livery is designed to invoke the Esso Ultron Supra Japanese Touring Car, legendary in the glory days of the JGTC with Pennzoil Skylines and Takata NSXs.
There are two cars in the line up inspired by the Toyota 2000GT. The yellow GT86 with the green bonnet imitates the design of the Yatabe Speed Trial 2000GT, the car which set multiple speed records during a 72-hour run at the Yatabe test facility in 1966. If the white and blue colour scheme of the #33 GT86 looks a lot like the Shelby colours then that's an entirely deliberate move; Carroll Shelby orchestrated motorsport for the 2000GT in America during the late 60s with some success against the established European and American competition.
What's a Toyota coupe without a Castrol livery?
Finally, the red GT86 harks back over 40 years to the origins of Toyota Team Europe. Its livery apes that of Ove Andersson's Celica 1600GT, entered into the 1972 RAC with official manufacturer support and coming out with a class victory. Andersson and Toyota continued to work together long after then as Andersson's own rally team became Toyota Team Europe.
On top of the vinyl wraps all six GT86s are lowered by 40mm, run on various designs of Rota wheels and feature Milltek exhausts too. The cars will be available to drive at the Moving Motor Show on June 25 and then will be on static display at the GT86 Drift Experience for the rest of the weekend. Dibs on the Castrol one.