Toyota Is Testing a Track-Focused GR GT To Fight The Porsche 911 GT3
Things are heating up in the performance world, and a new contender is about to enter the realm.
With Porsche's 911 standing as the perennial favorite enthusiast car, Toyota—under GR, or Gazoo Racing guise—is looking to make a splash with the upcoming GR GT flagship supercar. And to show GR isn't taking this challenge lightly, the brand is apparently prepping a model to run against Stuttgart's biggest guns, the GT3 and GT3 RS.
The Goodwood Festival of Speed has become one of the biggest stages for the automotive world, enthusiasts, and mass media alike. Instead of a static auto show floor, manufacturers get the chance to showcase new concoctions alongside the legacy of speed legends, appealing to the senses of sight, smell, and sound in a way other stages don't. It's unlike anything else.
At last week's event, GR brought out its upcoming GR GT cars to show off the future of the brand, and it wasn't just a one-car show. In addition to a very-close-to-production-spec GR GT were a GR GT3 and LFA Concept, all making runs up the hill to showcase what the long-nose silhouette looks like in motion. It's a beautiful sight.
But the story doesn't stop there. While GR was in the public eye at the Duke of Richmond's Goodwood Estate in West Sussex, England, Carscoops caught that GR had a test car running around the Nürburgring. Graced in trademark prototype camouflage, the car appears to be hiding a secret:
Active aero.
GR GT Project Manager Takashi Doi wasn't at the Green Hell, but instead the grounds of Goodwood when he spoke about the car's potentially more hardcore iteration. When asked about the 911 GT3 RS' DRS system—tech borrowed directly from Formula 1—Doi said it might be in the cards.
Doi also said the GR GT was purposefully designed without active suspension as it helps mitigate unnecessary cost and complexity. However, this opens up the potential for other active components making their way onto the car with more importance and influence; something like a movable wing that can adjust in real time for maximum downforce in the corners or minimum downforce on the straights would bode well here.
Between the road-going GR GT and the race car GR GT3, there's no doubt that the company is cooking up some more track-focused versions of the production car. It's not a matter of if, but rather a question of to what degree those extreme additions and subtractions are applied here. Obvious inclusions like more aggressive bodywork and huge vents will be part of the deal, but will the car get more power? We can't wait to find out.
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Based in Connecticut, Ross hosts The Hooniverse Podcast. He has been in the off-road world since he was a kid riding in the back of his dad’s YJ Wrangler. He works in marketing by day and in his free time contributes to Hooniverse, AutoGuide, and ATV.com, and in the past has contributed to UTV Driver, ATV Rider, and Everyday Driver. Ross drives a 2018 Lexus GX460 that is an ongoing build project featured on multiple websites and the podcast.
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