Way back in 2017 then CEO Akio Toyoda, who now serves as Toyota’s Chairman, declared the company would no longer build boring cars. He despised the humiliation of not having sports cars for enthusiasts like himself in the lineup.
Fast forward to the year 2025 and Toyoda delivered on his promise and brought receipts. Always bring receipts. The cake toppers? The new Toyota Gazoo Racing GR GT, GR GT3, and electric Lexus LFA. And that’s just where we are starting.
At the reveal of the Toyota Gazoo Racing GR GT on December 4 just outside Fuji, Japan at the automaker’s Woven City GR GT Project General Manager Takashi Doi told journalists that with the GR GT the team “wants to pass on the fun of driving and the passion for cars.”
Justifiably the team’s done and doing more than that. With the highly technical layout and design of the GR GT, from the aluminum chassis, low-set in-house developed 4.0-liter twin-turbo V-8 engine, transaxle 8-speed automatic transmission with a canonical gear to reverse the power’s direction and send it to the wheels via the mechanical limited-slip differential, this sports car is arguably an engineering knowledge transfer for the next-generation of engineers.
The innards, design, and engineering of that transaxle in-house developed 8-speed transaxle with the canonical gear reversing the power into the LSD to the wheels is actually art.
Doi said the automaker developed “cars that are meant to win.” Time will tell, but he has our attention.
“This is about respecting and returning to the basics. Packaging and lower center of gravity. Rigidity. And aerodynamics,” Doi said regarding the GR GT.
But these three new models are just the exclamation point on everything else Toyota’s done in recent years to deliver on the promise of no more boring cars.
The Supra nameplate returned. Toyota brought the GR Corolla hot hatch to America. The Land Cruiser was reimagined and returned as a less expensive, less luxurious off-roader (whether or not you love or hate what it’s become, it’s still alive and here in the U.S. market), the Celica is confirmed as returning, and there’s strong indications that the MR2 nameplate is set to make a comeback as well.
It’s like the ‘90s are being reborn, and enthusiasts are the ones that win. No more boring cars
Toyota provided travel, lodging, and raw fish which I definitely did not eat to bring you this first-hand report.
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