Toyota has moved to draw a direct link between its racing division and a burgeoning supply of performance road cars by renaming the former Gazoo Racing Europe, or TGR-E. What was formerly known as Toyota Motorsport GmbH will continue to develop and build racing machines as it did before, but the rebranding is obviously designed to better align the entity in a global marketplace - Gazoo Racing being firmly established in Japan and already used as the 'GR' identifier in model badging.
While the manufacturer has a proven record of leveraging its Europe-based expertise - the GR Yaris was developed by the Toyota rally team in Finland - the headquarters at Cologne is better known for Toyota’s Le Mans-winning TS050 Hybrid, its former Formula 1 team and recent customer racing cars like the Supra GT4. Joining the dots between all of those operations was obviously deemed important to future endeavours.
Toyota president, Akio Toyoda, said that TGR -E’s mission would remain unchanged as it approaches the World Endurance Championship’s all-new hypercar class era, stating that the division has “to do kaizen (continuous improvement)” and make “things better and better and better, no matter what the circumstances”. So it’s business as usual in Germany, albeit with new team clothes and a different logo above the reception desk.
The change has not entirely bridged the international gap though, as North America will retain then Toyota Racing Development moniker, better known as TRD. The US-based division is as much part of the Toyota competition umbrella as TGR-E, but a UK spokesman told PH that making a switch to the Gazoo name would be detrimental to business functions in the States, because the TRD brand is extremely well established among enthusiasts.
By contrast, Toyota has done without a genuine performance badge in Europe, making the launch of Gazoo Racing here a simpler exercise. With the Supra and Yaris now establishing the name on street legal cars, the connection is likely to pay dividends without any additional customer confusion. Expect interest to hit unprecedented levels when the road-going hypercar homologation model is built to mandate Toyota’s future Le Mans racing car - which is obviously where all this name chicanery is ultimately heading.
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