duPont REGISTRY took a front row seat last week for the world premiere of not just one but three supercars in Japan.
The countdown clock and music set the tone before the wraps came off From Lexus new LFA concept at Toyota’s Woven City plant in eastern Japan. It was right in front of me, left of the stage, with room for the two other cars I was expecting – and when the wraps came off, it was essentially the Lexus Sport Concept that I saw debut earlier at The Quail, A Motorsports Gathering, and later on the Pebble Beach concept lawn two days later.
That same design, with elegant styling for a future-oriented flagship for the Lexus range, will lead the way for future designs. Its wide but unobtrusive two-door shape combines dynamic elements that give a visual nod to the 2010-’12 LFA. But the big reveal here was that the powertrain will be fully electric, but details on its specifics and potential performance were scarce from the engineering team. Perhaps they are waiting for solid-state battery technology to mature?
Next to take the stage – well, drive up to it at least – were two cars that will be available long before the next generation LFA. The Gazoo Racing-badged GR GT and its racing GR GT3 sibling made for a dramatic scene as they came into view, four-litre V8 engines echoing in the background as they came to a stop.
Before we walked into the hall, an exhibit outside featured a Toyota 2000GT borrowed from the nearby Fuji Motorsports Museum, and that long nose and sweeping fastback tail was a nice throwback to the forward-looking machines that will define Toyota’s future. Typical for a Japanese manufacturer, Toyota leans on its heritage and claims that these cars embody the ‘Shikinen Sengu’ – or ‘secret sauce’ of car making – for a new generation.
After a warm-up from Simon Humphries, Toyota’s operating officer and chief branding guru, company chairman Akio Toyoda took the stage. We’d already heard that the trigger for this trio of cars came from Toyoda’s visit to Pebble Beach 14 years ago, where he learned that “Toyota designs boring cars.”
His response was to feel “kuyashisa” – a Japanese word often used literally to express “frustration”, “regret” or “annoyance” – but Toyoda himself at the world premiere faced the English word “humiliation” – the harshest translation you can get. “I will never forget that feeling of humiliation,” Toyoda said on stage through an interpreter. “The pain is definitely the force that drives me even now.”
Wow, when was the last time you heard an automotive executive admit that? He also spoke of his dismay that his products were outclassed, from a performance perspective, on the Nürburgring’s daunting Nordschleife. So it’s no surprise that the new GR GT has been beating around the bush in pre-production testing as they aim for a sub-seven minute lap time.
In this sense, Toyota told us how the road car and the race car were designed and built in tandem, with one requirement complementing the other. It can really masquerade as a GT3 race car with number plates, and looking closely at the lines I got a strong sense of the Nissan GT-R R32 vibe, which isn’t a bad thing! Has Toyota created its own JDM Godzilla? Time will tell…
The GR GT was born in a post-Covid world and we saw photos of Toyota’s engineers all masked up as they created the car’s basic layout. They considered a mid-engine layout, as Toyoda had given them a completely open brief, but opted for front-engine rear-wheel drive. The road version also features a small electric motor (hybrids are banned in GT3 racing), which transfers extra power to the wild rear-mounted transmission – which they proudly showed off in a cutaway format, along with the all-new engine and turbos.
The all-aluminum spaceframe chassis is also incredible to look at, but it’s an interesting question where the LFA Concept – which shares this platform – will store its batteries. You would of course expect it to have four-wheel drive with multiple motors front and rear, so the carbon torque tube of the GR GT is not necessary.
Although this was clearly visible, many details were still hidden. We expect the GR GT to go on sale sometime in 2027, and we’ve often asked about pricing, with the best answer being “refer to the road cars of our GT3 racing rivals.” So if we consider that a Porsche 992.2 generation 911, that’s somewhere north of $200,000, but less than $250,000.
Another tidbit we learned from Humphries was that “when this car is finally ready, it will fulfill Akio’s latest request to completely redefine the sound of an electric sports car.” And perhaps that’s the only sad aspect of this launch: that iconic sound of the LFA’s V10 – which has developed such a cult-like respect in recent years – will probably never be heard again. That was a car that didn’t sell well because it was probably ahead of its time.
How will the second-generation LFA be regarded, and even more, what will it sound like? But you can rest assured about the GR GT, because after a little encouragement a day later at the Fuji Speedway we heard the car revving hard in the garage. When I stood right behind it, my flapping jeans were a testament to the current level of 641 horsepower.
It seems not all Toyotas are boring.
Images: Charles Bradley
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