Toyota concepts hit SEMA

Toyota GR brings five concept cars to Las Vegas tuning show.

Toyota's Gazoo Racing performance brand is hitting the SEMA tuning and modification show in Las Vegas with five new high-performance concepts. Well, four concepts and five cars - two of the cars are twins...

Supra drag race twins

Those twins are the GR Supra 10-Second Twins. These are a matching pair of Supra coupes, tweaked to be able to run 10-second drag race times. Well, 10.984 seconds, to be exact, and in keeping with the straightened times we're in, the cars have been built on a budget of $10,000.

The Gazoo Racing crew added items such as a Pure Turbo single turbo, some CSF (Cooling Systems and Flexibles - a tuning specialist company that's been in the hot-rod business since 1947) high-performance intercoolers, a CFS hi-performance heat exchanger and a CSF transmission cooler, and upgraded rear axles for extra traction. GR reckons that has boosted the Supras' power output by 30-40 per cent, which suggests a total power output in the region of 350hp.

Up front, the Supra twins get 18 x 5-inch Weld Racing Belmont Drag wheels, while at the rear, there are 17 x 10-inch Weld Racing Belmont Beedlock wheels. The tyres come from drag racing specialists Mickey Thompson, while the brakes are 13.7-inch front discs with four-piston Brembo calipers at the front and 13.0-inch rear discs with single-piston floating calipers at the back. Inside, the cabin gets G-Force Racing Gear six-point racing seat belts. The exteriors - one is finished in red, the other in black, look relatively stock save for a distinctive white stripe up and over the left hand sides.

Corolla rally car concept

Next up is the Toyota GR Corolla Circuit Edition Rally Car. This, based on the 300-odd-hp four-wheel drive GR Corolla hot hatch (which, alas, isn't and won't be sold here...), is a vision of what a World Rally Championship Corolla might look like, were the Yaris not already doing a decent job of mopping up victories and world titles.

While the car's mechanical package has remained basically the same (it uses the GR Yaris' three-cylinder 1.6 turbo engine, fitted with an auxiliary oil cooler, custom exhaust, and a Toyota Racing Developments air filter) the idea has been to: "add only what a rally team needs and removing unnecessary components to help optimise overall weight."

So, the Corolla Rally concept gets three-inch wheelarch flares made from 20-gauge steel, a carbon-composite bodykit and an aero package which includes a custom-made carbon-fibre rear wing, 3D printed rear quarter windows, 17-inch OZ rally-style wheels with Continental rallying tyres, fully-adjustable suspension with TEIN Gravel Rally coilover damper units, 14 x 1.1-inch ventilated, and slotted brake discs with four-piston aluminium calipers, an auxiliary cooler for the six-speed manual gearbox, OMP Racing seats and belts, a fire suppression system, and a roll-cage made from TIG welded 1 3/4-inch x .095 DOM steel.

GR86-based race and drift cars

Next up is the Toyota GR86 'Daily Drifter' coupe. Obviously, based on the recently-launched GR86 sports car, this is "a special vehicle reminiscent of the 1,000-horsepower purpose-built racers competing in Formula Drift, but something the average car enthusiast could afford to build and maintain in his home workshop."

To create it, Toyota GR took a stock GR86 and added a Seibon carbon-fibre bonnet, a new carbon-fibre front splitter, rear wing, side skirts, window visors, bracing struts for the front suspension towers, door openings, subframe, steering rack, a Sparco EVO QRT racing seat with a six-point harness, a short-shift kit for the six-speed manual gearbox, ST Suspensions ST XTA Plus 3 coilover dampers with adjustable settings, 17-inch Motegi Racing MR154 Battle wheels finished in white, and a tasty set of Yokohama tyres.

For extra performance, the 2.4-litre flat-four engine has been given a HKS GT2 Supercharger Pro ZD8 kit with an intercooler, a MagnaFlow NEO Series cat-back performance exhaust system, and a CSF aluminium radiator.

Finally, the Toyota GR86 Cup Car was developed for the Toyota Gazoo Racing North American GR Cup Series. "This new race series will reinforce and validate the track-inspired engineering in every Toyota GR sports car, and the valuable on-track knowledge will give Toyota engineers data to support the design of future vehicles for the road," said Toyota GR.

The car itself is based on the production GR86 but gets Stratasys custom bodywork with a Toyota-designed front splitter, a carbon-fibre rear wing, Continental racing slicks, Alcon aluminium brakes, a six-speed sequential gearbox made by transmission specialists SADEV, adjustable JRI dampers for the tweaked suspension, an OMP roll cage, and a 22-gallon (83-litre) fuel cell.

The 2.4-litre engine is stock, save for a tweaked Bosch engine management system and a Borla exhaust.

Published on: November 2, 2022