Toyota Motor Corporation (TMC) has announced the launch of GR sports car series. The two letters points to Gazoo Racing, the company arm within TMC which focusses on racing activities with the objective of not only for research but also to train staff.

“GR” will now be a series of cars that add excitement to Toyota’s existing line-up. It first started with the Yaris GRMN launched in Europe in March 2017 (read about it here and here), and now TMC plans to bring the GR name – other than to Europe and Japan – to the rest of the world.

There will be a few stages in the GR hierarchy, starting with the top-of-the-line GRMN, then the mid-range GR. After that comes the entry level GR Sport.

Essentially, GRMN will be for limited release and get the best goodies, including a tuned engine, while GR in TMC’s own words will ‘possess the essence of GRMN’ and be mass produced. GR Sport will be attached to less obvious models such as minivans. 

Also, there will also be GR Parts which is something for Toyota owners who prefer to customise their own vehicles.

To start with, the GR and GR SPORT will be available for the Vitz and the GR SPORT will be offered for the Prius PHV, Harrier, Mark X, Voxy, and Noah beginning September 19 (in Japan).

The Vitz GRMN, 86 GR, Aqua GR Sport, and Prius α GR Sport will be next in line.

Together with the launch of GR, TMC will open a series of “GR Garage” shops as regional bases for Toyota Gazoo Racing. On top of that, current “Area 86” garages in Japan will be rebranded as GR Garage shops.

Despite all this, there is no word on how this effects TRD which before this doubled as not only a motorsport outfit but also a brand name for high performance parts. The latter (specifically) is very much what GR Parts is now.

Any guesses?

But yay! anyway for GR. We wonder when it will come to Malaysia.