Aussies bid for Toyota hypercar

Two Australians have lodged “very serious” expressions of interest in purchasing Gazoo Racing’s flagship, the $1 million-plus 735kW GR Super Sport Hypercar.

The news comes as Toyota’s performance tuner launches its first model in Australia, the hotly anticipated and soon-to-be sold out GR Supra.

Inspired by the Toyota’s TS050 Le Mans LMP1 racer, the hybrid Super Sport will be both a road car and act as the basis for Toyota’s confirmed entry in the new world endurance championship Hypercar class.

Hypercar replaces LMP1 and kicks off in 2020/2021, with an Aston Martin based on the spectacular Valkyrie the other confirmed starter so far from a major manufacturer.

Just 20 examples of the Toyota Super Sport hypercar have to be built within two years of the start of competition and despite the local interest Toyota can’t guarantee any will make it here.

“We have had a couple of approaches already,” confirmed Toyota Australia sales and marketing vice-president Sean Hanley.

“It was in the press some months ago and we have had two very, very strong expressions of interest.”

“I have explained to these two very strong expressions of interest that there is a lot to work to do on that car before we can confirm it will come to this market.

“There is servicing, registration, which side it drives on, pricing.”

The most dynamic display of the Super Sport has been video issued of Toyota global boss Akio Toyoda driving a camouflaged mule at Fuji in Japan. In that case, the steering wheel was on the right.

Added Hanley: “It’s very early and we are still in discussions about that vehicle and whether we could bring it to market or not.

“Right now I have nothing much on this car in terms of it coming to Australia and we will continue to work with our global company on that.”

Hanley was far more bullish on lesser Gazoo Racing models coming to Australia as they are revealed. Toyota’s race and road performance tuner is said to be deep into a Corolla hot hatch, while plenty of other possible models have been mooted.

“Nothing is off limits for Gazoo Racing and its future potential in this market,” Hanley said.

There are three levels of Gazoo Racing models. GR Sport is fundamentally dress-up, GR is hot and GRMN (Gazoo Racing Meisters of the Nurburgring) is hottest.

Toyota Australia is interested in potentially taking models from all three grades.

A Yaris GRMN is on-sale in Europe and has been driven by carsales.com.au, but a GR associated with the next generation due in 2020 is what we are expected to see in Australia.

In addition to modified version of existing models a ’third brother’ sports car has consistently been mooted by Supra and 86 chief engineer Tetsuya Tada. Usually, he has mentioned a mid-ships new-gen MR2 and a return of the Celica, possibly with all-wheel rive to reflect its rallying heritage.

Meanwhile, the Supra has launched with 100 examples of the 300 allocated to Australia in the first 12 months on-sale still to be claimed. That will happen at an online ballot on September 25.

So far 200 Supras have been allocated as a result of two online ballots. About 200 potential owners have missed out so far. Predictable, Melbourne and Sydney have been the hot spots for interest.