Toyota Gazoo Racing

In 2007, an in-house team consisting of student test drivers and mechanics led by Hiromu Naruse, who was a test driver of Toyota, competed in the 24 Hours Nürburgring race. Akio Toyoda, then the vice president of Toyota, who received driving instruction directly from Naruse, also participated as a driver.[6] At that time, he was not allowed to call the team "Works Toyota Racing". Therefore, the name Team Gazoo was used instead. "Gazoo" (from 画像 (Gazō, lit. "image")) is the name of a portal site that Toyota was involved in establishing—and in public relations, the drivers were also given the nicknames "Cap" for Naruse and "Morizo" for Toyoda. Also, as there were minimal budgets, they used the Altezzas and BMW E90s, which at the time had been discontinued, as the race car project. The Gazoo website posted the activity report as an amateur race project.

Lexus LF-A Gazoo Racing at the Goodwood Festival of Speed

From 2002 to 2009, Toyota Motorsport GmbH, based in Cologne, Germany, which has been named Toyota Gazoo Racing Europe since April 2020, had been engineering and developing Formula One cars for their parent company Toyota to compete in the FIA Formula One World Championship, the highest and the most prestigious single seater auto-racing championship in the world, within these seven years their Toyota Formula One team racing under the name Panasonic Toyota Racing, achieved very rare success with the total of thirteen podium finishes which includes five second places, three pole positions and three fastest laps recorded. Being the highest budget team in the sport with experienced drivers on the F1 grid, they failed to win a single race and withdrew from the sport at the end of the 2009 season. Toyota also supplied their Formula One engines to Jordan F1 Racing, Midland F1 Racing and the Williams Formula One Team during their eight years time in the sport.

From 2009 onwards, as the company continued to participate in their motorsports activities, they introduced and engineered the development models such as the Lexus LF-A and the FT-86 with the goal of "training people and cars at the Nürburgring, the sacred place for new car development" under the Gazoo Racing name.[7] The drivers include professional racers such as Takayuki Kinoshita, Akira Iida, and Hiroaki Ishiura, but the mechanics and engineers are selected from the employees. In 2014, the team had to play a three-class domination to honor Naruse's accidental death in June 2010.[8]

After Toyoda taking office as the President of Toyota in 2009, the scope of Gazoo Racing has expanded, and it has organized several circuit events such as the "86/BRZ Race" and the "Toyota Gazoo Racing Festival", which is held every November. In addition, the sports conversion brands called "GRMN" (Gazoo Racing, tuned by the Meister of the Nürburgring) and "G's/G Sports" was established in 2009 and 2010 respectively.[9]

From April 2015, all motorsports activities that had been divided into "Gazoo Racing", "Toyota Racing" and "Lexus Racing" have been unified with "Gazoo Racing". Toyota and Lexus brand racing activities are under the Gazoo Racing umbrella and are called "Toyota Gazoo Racing" and "Lexus Gazoo Racing".[10] From this year onwards, Toyota Gazoo Racing (TGR) works machines use a common color scheme of red and black stripes on a white background. At the same time, the "Great Skills Training Department" has been set up to develop human resources who can participate in Gazoo Racing activities centered on rallies and Nürburgring.

In 2016, Juichi Wakisaka, who had retired from Super GT, became an ambassador for TGR. TGR also had acquired the naming rights for the first corner of the affiliated Fuji Speedway and renamed it to "TGR Corner".[11] In addition, actor Takeru Satoh was appointed as a television advertisement character to carry out publicity activities.

In 2017, the Toyota Gazoo Racing Factory, which had been developing motorsport vehicles, was reorganized and the "Gazoo Racing Company" was established.[12] As an in-house company, it strengthened its independence and contributed to Toyota's car making by feeding back the knowledge gained in the race to road cars, and the direction to secure profitability was decided.[13] The sports conversion brand was reorganized into the GR series ("GRMN", "GR", "GR Sport/GR-S" and "GR Parts"), and the "GR Garage", which is a regional base, was set up at dealers in each region.[14][15]

In 2019, the GR Supra, the first GR brand-exclusive car, was released. The GR Supra shares a platform with the BMW Z4 (G29) and is produced under contract by Magna Steyr in Austria.

In 2020, the GR Yaris, the second GR-branded car, and the first produced by Toyota, was launched. It is produced at the "GR Factory" inside the Motomachi plant, a production line dedicated to GR-branded vehicles. Unlike most automobile plants, the "GR Factory" does not use a conveyor belt assembly line, instead vehicles are built at stations with more manual assembly processes.[16] The "GR Factory" employs experienced technicians recruited from throughout the company.[17]

In 2021, the GR86, the third GR-branded car, was introduced. The vehicle is the second generation of the 86 sports car, which are jointly developed with Subaru, and produced at Subaru's Gunma assembly plant.

In 2022, the GR Corolla, the fourth GR-branded car, and the second produced by Toyota, was unveiled. Built mainly for the North American market, the GR Corolla is produced at the "GR Factory" alongside the GR Yaris, which is not sold in North America.[17]

Gazoo Racing is involved in the creation of vehicles in three categories. GR models are bespoke vehicles, GR Sport models are more entry-level conversions of existing models, and GRMN (Gazoo Racing, tuned by the Meister of the Nürburgring) models are the top-of-the-line, limited production conversions of existing models, including GR vehicles.

GR series

Model		Introduced	Market(s)
	GR86	2021	Global
	GR Corolla	2022	North America, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, Brazil, Thailand, Malaysia, South Africa, Indonesia
	GR Supra	2019	Global
	GR Yaris	2020	Japan, Europe, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore, Philippines, Mexico, Argentina, Taiwan

GR Sport (GR-S) series

Model		Introduced	Market(s)
	Agya GR Sport (A350)	2023	Indonesia
	Aqua GR Sport (XP210)	2022	Japan
	Camry GR Sport	2021	Russia,[24] Kazakhstan[25]
	Copen GR Sport	2019	Japan
	Corolla/Corolla Altis GR Sport	2019	Europe, Thailand, Taiwan, Brazil, Argentina, China, Philippines, Singapore, Malaysia
	Corolla Cross GR Sport	2021	Taiwan, Thailand, Philippines, Brazil, South Africa, Indonesia, Malaysia
	C-HR GR Sport (second generation)	2023	Europe, Australia
	Fortuner/SW4 GR Sport	2021	Indonesia, Thailand, Philippines, Brazil, India, Pakistan
	Hilux/Hilux Revo GR Sport	2019	Japan, South Africa, South America, Thailand, Philippines, Europe, Indonesia, Australia, Malaysia, Pakistan, New Zealand
	Land Cruiser GR Sport	2021	Japan, Middle East, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, South America, Indonesia
	Raize GR Sport	2021	Indonesia
	RAV4 GR Sport	2022	Europe, Indonesia
	Rush GR Sport	2021	Indonesia, Philippines
	Vios GR Sport/GR-S	2021	Malaysia, Vietnam, Philippines
	Yaris GR Sport (XP150)	2021	Indonesia
	Yaris GR Sport (XP210)	2022	Europe
	Yaris Cross GR Sport (XP210)	2022	Japan, Europe, Australia, New Zealand

GRMN series

Model		Year and number built	Market(s)
	86 GRMN	2016 (100 units)	Japan
	Century GRMN	2018 (2 black and white units, not for sale)	Japan
	iQ GRMN	2009 (100 units)	Japan
	iQ GRMN Supercharger	2012 (100 units)	Japan
	Mark X GRMN	2015 (100 units), 2019 (350 units)	Japan
	Vitz GRMN Turbo	2013 (200 units)	Japan
	Vitz GRMN	2018 (150 units)	Japan
	Yaris GRMN	2018 (400 units)	Europe
	GRMN Yaris	2022 (500 units)	Japan

• Toyota in motorsport
• Toyota Racing Development
• Toyota G Sports

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Toyota Gazoo Racing.

• Official website (global)