What does Gazoo mean in Toyota’s Gazoo racing? – Jalopnik

No, boomers, it has nothing to do with a small green alien who was banned to found on “The Flintstones”. Gazoo Racing is the Motorsports and Performance Division of Toyota, and it lends its technical expertise to both traffic cars and racing cars. It also supports older models by reducing even more vintage parts for restorers.

So you could say that Gazoo Racing is similar to people like Mercedes-Benz ‘AMG, Nissan’s Nismo, Dodge’s SRT, Hyundai’s N and the entire series of Go-Fast Speed ​​stores that are officially integrated with automatic activities. A difference is of course that only Toyota has named his Motorsports Group after a website.

The website was launched in 1998 to offer “more and more” cars to customers, the website has its name to a combination of “GA”, which is Japanese for “Picture” and the English word “Zoo”. So the site was like a digital zoo where the cars were the animals that could be seen. This was a big problem in the nineties before the internet took over the world. As the years pass, that concept and the word ‘Gazoo’ meant a special kind of garage for Toyota products, one Toyota Says is “a very intimate place where people work together to improve the smallest details, with the aim of delivering increasingly better cars and services for every customer, in every garage.”

Given the digital roots of the word, it is no surprise to discover that Gazoo Racing was not officially launched until 2007, when it was founded by Toyota President Akio Toyoda and the best test driver of the company, Hiromu Naruse. And in the beginning it was only part of the three -fold approach of the Motorsport company that also counted Toyota Racing and Lexus Racing to his stable. Toyota did not consolid all three under the Gazoo Racing -ParaLu until 2015.

A special focus for the Motorsports division of Toyota, before and after that point, was endurance racing-where long distances and non-stop driving the engineering of the automaker really put to the test. Toyota, for example, participated for the first time in the 24 hours of Le Mans in 1985, won his first stage finish seven years later and won the event downright in 2018 – the first of five victories in a row in the iconic race. Gazoo Racing has built on that kind of success to win several trophies for manufacturers and driver in the World Endurance Championship of the FIA. This includes taking another championship home last year.

Another important showcase for Gazoo Racing is another Motorsports series with a sharp focus on sustainability, the World Rally Championship, and Toyota has also seen its share in success here: it earned his 103rd WRC overinning this year and is now on top of the all-time WRC leader of the Wins of the Wins of the Wins.

If you want a taste of the track-friendly technical efforts of Toyota for yourself, Gazoo Racing has given his inspection to three current offers in the car maker’s line-up. The access point? The Toyota GR86 Sports Coupe that is priced from $ 30,400 (not $ 1,195 to destination costs).

Of course it shares a part of its base with the Subaru BRZ-Net as its 2.4-liter boxer-engine-but it also receives a special treatment from Gazoo Racing for an even more enthusiastic driving experience. A highlight is the chassis/suspension of the GR86, which can use a Torsen Limited slip differential, SACHS Dempers and Brembo brakes for heter action. The 2026 model year will also see the debut of a new special edition that we have named a Throwback after the best Scion FR-S (the original name of the GR86).

The next is the Toyota Gr Corolla, the entry of the brand in the hot-hatch Sweepstakes. New this year is a graduate suspension, an extra 22 pound-foot torque and a paddle-shifting eight-speed gearbox that refined the unrefined. Supported by 300 horses and the improved 295 LB-FT torque, the GR Corolla opens for $ 39,160 before the $ 1,195 destination costs are applied.

The APEX predator in the family is the Toyota GR Supra, another machine made in a partnership institution, this time with BMW. Unfortunately, despite the delivery of unmistakably impressive performance, those BMW supplys have eliminated many potential customers. But the new supra will actually be a Toyota, not a rescined model of the Bayerian motorcycle.