Not solely is Toyota’s achingly lovely GR GT3 idea being developed as a race automotive, there is a street model within the works as properly. This affirmation comes straight from the highest of Toyota’s World Endurance Championship race crew.
Talking with Motorsport.com, WEC crew director Rob Leupen mentioned that the GR GT3 will start racing in Europe in 2026. It was beforehand thought that the glossy racer would goal new WEC GT3 guidelines that go into impact in 2024 with a 2025 debut, however it now seems the launch might be delayed by one season. However there is a good cause for the deferment, as Leupen instructed Motorsport.
“The date is in alignment with the street automotive facet, which is following the philosophy of Toyota to have a motorsport-bred automotive on the street. That is transferring ahead for the time being.”
When requested a followup about whether or not the GT3 may fall below the Lexus marque, Leupen replied, “In the mean time, it appears to be. It will depend on the way it develops inside Toyota, however for the time being, sure.”
Toyota already has efficiency fashions within the portfolio already – the GR86, GR Yaris and Corolla, and the GR Supra. The GT3 can be coming into a crowded lineup and have to fit in above the Supra. It might be a greater match for a Lexus to be racing alongside Ferraris and Aston Martins, and the GT3 would make a superb successor to the RC (or deliver again the SC!).
Nonetheless, Lexus has plans to go all-electric by 2030 in North America, Europe and Japan. Will the GT3 match with that plan? Maybe the rumored twin-turbo V8 LFA successor would be the GT3 as a substitute and a totally electrical LFA will comply with within the subsequent decade.
The GR GT3 Idea made its shock debut on the 2022 Tokyo Auto Salon, impressing onlookers with its menacing magnificence. Its exceptional similarity to the additionally gorgeous Mazda RX-Imaginative and prescient Idea couldn’t be ignored as properly, giving us hope that Toyota could amortize prices by sharing the platform with Mazda. Toyota owns a 5 p.c stake within the Hiroshima firm, and the collaboration may give rotary engine devotees the long-awaited RX-9.
That may be the dream, and patent purposes for each the Toyota and the Mazda have been discovered. However even when the Mazda would not occur it is possible the Toyota will. Homologation guidelines for GT3 require that race vehicles have at the very least 300 street vehicles constructed of their picture.