Toyota’s president and CEO Koji Sato has indicated that the Gazoo Racing (GR) high-performance sub-brand will continue to expand and accelerate development, Autocar reported on Tuesday.
Akio Toyoda, the grandson of the carmaker’s founder Kiichiro Toyoda, became chairman of the board of directors in April after leading the company since 2009. Speaking on the development, the new CEO of Toyota stated:
The Gazoo brand will be acknowledged for the future, and maybe we can even speed it up. Our Master Driver [Toyoda] was also president of the company at the same time as he had a steering wheel in his hand for Gazoo. Now he is only chairman, maybe he will have a lot more time to develop cars for them?
The current GR lineup includes Supra, Corolla, Yaris, and GR86. According to industry speculations, the future lineup may include a sportier version of the fully electric bZ4X crossover. Toyota has publicly tested hydrogen combustion power in an endurance racing Corolla and a GR Yaris demonstrator.
Toyota showed lifestyle and commercial EV concepts at the end of 2021, including a low-slung rear-mid-engined sports car like the MR2. Toyota’s sports car concept could compete with the fully electric Porsche 718 range and the Lotus-developed Alpine EV sports car.
