If good things come to those who wait, then Toyota’s new supercar ought to be extraordinary. The final LFA was made in 2012; it's been a few years since the GR GT3 concept, and rumours have been swirling for a while about what the Electrified Sport concept might become - including that mysterious Festival of Speed appearance of two cars. Now the wait is almost over, as a new Toyota Gazoo Racing supercar is to be revealed on December 4th.
It says something of GR's recent track record that mere confirmation of the project is guaranteed to provoke a lively response. For now, all we have is the date and a picture of the headlight alongside those of an LFA Nurburgring Package and the 2000 GT famous from the 1966 Yatabe Speed trials; the pinnacle of Toyota’s past front-engined supercars, with a clear indication that this car will continue that lineage. ‘The soul lives on’ reads the countdown microsite; a car that could match the impact of the LFA and 2000GT would be something spectacular indeed.
For the moment, nothing is known about the mechanical configuration, though given the noise erupting from those cars at Goodwood we’re going to assume some kind of V8 is under the bonnet. Just a few weeks after the stunning GR GT3 concept was shown in 2022, Toyota revealed a hydrogen-powered 5.0 V8; this car won’t be that niche, but clearly work has still been continuing on large capacity combustion engines. Probably it’ll be hybridised to some extent, perhaps with a front e-axle to support a V8-powered rear one and offer up four-wheel drive. Maybe it’ll plug in, maybe it won’t - we just don’t know for now. But it’s hard not to be enormously excited about the Gazoo Racing supercar.
The LFA was Ferrari-beating brilliant, but if anything, it’s achievements at the more humble end of the enthusiast scale that have really secured Gazoo’s reputation: it turned the Yaris into a cult performance car hero, meaningfully improved the 86 without spoiling its core appeal, and did a fine job resurrecting the Supra. Now it’s time for a no-holds-barred exotic, with all that recent motorsport expertise and experience, plus endless Nurburgring testing to draw upon. After seemingly endless conjecture and predictions, we’ll know exactly what GR has been working on all this time in seven weeks. It can’t come soon enough.
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