There's Great News About Toyota's Future GR Performance Cars
If you had told us 10 years ago that Toyota would be one of the last companies building affordable performance cars, we'd have never believed you. Of course, if the same conversation said that Toyota would be the last full-line automaker in the world, we'd have been equally in disbelief.
Yet here we are in 2025, and Toyota is the only brand to sell a full showroom, from compact cars to full-sized trucks. With the GR Corolla, GR 86, and GR Supra, it almost owns the affordable performance car marketplace, and it is not about to change its performance intentions. Instead, Toyota is looking for its Gazoo Racing brand to expand. To keep offering gas engines and stick-shifts and to cover even more enthusiasts than it does now.
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Toyota
Toyota is a Japanese automaker founded in 1937 that has developed a reputation for reliability across a multitude of segments, from sports cars and family sedans to pickup trucks and off-roaders. Famous models from the brand include the Hilux, Land Cruiser, Camry, Crown, and Corolla, the latter being the world's best-selling vehicle nameplate, with more than 50 million Corolla-badged vehicles being sold since it was first introduced. Toyota typically competes in the mainstream market, but is also famous for launching Lexus as a luxury sub-brand to take on Mercedes-Benz.
Toyota Sales VP Says GR Is Committed To Snap, Crackle, And Pop
Toyota Australia's VP for sales and marketing, Sean Hanley, spoke with Carsales about Gazoo's plans. He said exactly the words we wanted to hear: that GR was committed to the "snap, crackle, and pop" of internal combustion and keeping three pedals around in an electrified world.
"Even as we transition to electrification, there is still room to satisfy dyed-in-the-wool performance car lovers, and these enthusiasts are not a dying breed," he said.
After decades of doldrums, Toyota is back in the performance market in force. It hasn't ignored electrification - most of its models now offer a hybrid - but with the GR brand, it plans to appeal to both practical and enthusiast buyers.
"While we’re focused on future electrification for the rest of our model line-up, we plan to keep GR about the sounds, about the smells and the feel of a combustion engine – that snap, crackle, and pop we all love so much," he said. "It’s that tactile connection between driver and machine that ignites the passions of a car enthusiast," Hanley said, "and we have no intention at all of abandoning it in the foreseeable future."
Internal Combustion Might Not Always Mean Gasoline
Toyota GR Yaris M Concept (2)
He clarified that those popping engines might not always use gasoline, but they will still be combustion-powered. Toyota has been investing heavily into synthetic fuels as well as the use of liquid hydrogen as a gasoline replacement. When the time for all-electric comes, those too will be fun. GR would turn to "sports-focused EVs in the future," he said.
Toyota CTO Hiroki Nakajima confirmed last November that a new Celica would be coming. The brand has also teased a new MR2 in its Grip anime series. Hanley brought up the GR Yaris M Concept and its mid-engine, then left the crowd hanging. "I’ll leave it to you to speculate as to what that might mean, but who knows what the future might hold," he said about the car. It's not exactly a confirmation of a new MR2, but it's pretty darned close.
Toyota HiLux GR Sport
Toyota Gazoo Racing Boss Wants To Build Performance SUVs With The GR Badge
Tomoya Takahashi thinks that SUVs might be necessary to grow the high-performance GR brand.
With the Supra staying, a new Celica, and now a stronger possibility of a new MR2, Toyota's performance car future is looking stronger than ever. Then there are the possibilities of a new Lexus LFA successor called the LFR with a new twin-turbo 4.0-liter V8. Toyota might be behind on EVs, but it is definitely ahead in our hearts.
Toyota GR Yaris rear 1/4
