Properly, it was good whereas it lasted. Toyota had appeared to simply be getting its mojo again with the Gazoo Racing sub-brand. GR has been on a roll lately, with rapid-fire releases of driver-oriented efficiency automobiles just like the GR Supra, GR Yaris, GR86 and GR Corolla. Sadly, if the GR86’s chief engineer Yasunori Suezawa is appropriate, followers should not maintain their breaths for an additional.
Talking by way of a translator to Australia’s Drive about future GR fashions, Suezawa mentioned, “There may be [sic] none left truly, so this [the GR86] is the final.” It isn’t clear if he meant absolutely the final ever, full cease, or if there are now not any extra within the works in the mean time. It is also potential that future sports activities automobiles could not fall underneath the Gazoo Racing model. It was lower than a yr in the past that Toyota confirmed what gave the impression to be an idea for an electrical sports activities automobile with a mid-“engine” profile.
Suezawa went on to pitch the GR Sport lineup, which attire up extra pedestrian fashions with sportier wheels, aero bits and typically suspension tuning á la BMW’s M Sport or Mercedes’s AMG-Line. “For the GR [performance brand], mainly this [the GR86] is the final,” he mentioned. “However we’ve a GR Sport [brand] that we’ll be [widening] with fashions just like the Corolla, Yaris Cross and C-HR.”
That is small comfort for these anticipating a revival of, say, the MR2. It additionally calls into query whether or not there will likely be successive generations of the present crop of GR-branded automobiles. If the GR86 follows within the footsteps of the earlier era, it might need a nine-year lifespan. The GR Supra’s destiny will most likely be tied to the BMW Z4’s. The GR Yaris and GR Corolla will seemingly rely what the following era brings for the non-GR variants of these automobiles, and whether or not Toyota sticks with WRC.
It might come as a shock if Toyota let Gazoo Racing simply peter out. Not as a result of lovers love the GR model essentially, however as a result of Toyota has made such an enormous deal about unifying its sport fashions and racing actions underneath this one banner. So long as attention-grabbing merchandise hold coming, although, Toyota can name them no matter they need.
