Performance Sub-Brand May Be Coming to Toyota, Report Says

Toyota could be spicing things up ahead of the new Supra launch.

byEric Brandt|
Performance Sub-Brand May Be Coming to Toyota, Report Says
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Toyota is making an announcement next month regarding a “new sports car series,” according to Automotive News. The announcement will be made in Tokyo and that’s about all we know so far, officially. It's part of an ongoing effort at Toyota to shake off their reputation as being a car brand for people who don’t like cars and become a brand that’s desirable to today’s auto enthusiasts.

“What about TRD?” you may be asking. You may not have noticed, but Toyota’s TRD performance line in the U.S. barely exists these days. There are TRD parts, but there isn’t even a TRD trim of the Toyota 86. If anything, it’s become more of an off-road brand than a performance brand with the TRD Pro series available on the Tacoma, Tundra, and 4Runner.

What the new Toyota performance sub-brand would presumably bring to the table would be similar to the Lexus F series. It probably won’t be its own brand, per se, but more likely a series of sporty vehicles within the brand. There's a pretty good chance the new Supra will have some sort of involvement with whatever will be announced next month.

In Japan, Toyota already has the GRMN line. GRMN is a performance lineup and an acronym for Gazoo Racing tuned by the Meister of Nurburgring. Gazoo Racing is a Toyota unit that makes cars for motorsports including rally and endurance racing. The GRMN lineup has consisted of performance variants of cars we called Scions like the tC and the iQ along with an 86 and a new Yaris.

However, the GRMN cars always come in very limited runs. For example, there were only 100 86 GRMN cars built. Whatever this new sub-brand is will likely be more mainstream with much wider availability. At this point, we don’t know much about this new line and it might not even come to North America, but until we know more, please join us in speculating wildly.

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