duPont REGISTRY grabbed a front-row seat for the world premiere of not just one but three supercars in Japan last week.
The countdown clock and music set the scene, before the wraps came off Lexus’s new LFA concept at Toyota’s Woven City plant in eastern Japan. It sat in right front of me, to the left of the stage, with space for the two other cars I was expecting – and when the wraps came off, it was essentially the Lexus Sport Concept that I previously saw debuted at The Quail, A Motorsports Gathering, and latterly on the concept lawn at Pebble Beach two days later.
That same design, featuring elegant styling for a future-focused flagship for Lexus’s range, will signal the way forward for future designs. Its wide but low-profile two-door form blends dynamic elements that give some visual nods to the LFA of 2010-’12. But the big reveal here was that its powertrain will be all-electric, yet details about its specifics and potential performance were scarce from the engineering team. Are they perhaps waiting for solid state battery technology to mature?
Next to hit the stage – well, drive on to it at least, were two cars that will be available way before the next-gen LFA. The Gazoo Racing-badged GR GT and its racing GR GT3 sibling cut a dramatic scene as they burbled into view, four-liter V8 engines echoing off the backdrop as they revved to a halt.
Before we walked into the hall, a display outside had borrowed a Toyota 2000GT from the nearby Fuji Motorsports Museum, and that long nose, sweeping fastback tail was a nice throwback to the future-forward machines that will headline Toyota’s future. Typically for a Japanese manufacturer, Toyota leans on its heritage and claims these cars embody its “Shikinen Sengu” – or “secret sauce” of car making – to a new generation.
After a warmup from Simon Humphries, Toyota’s operating officer and chief branding guru, company chairman Akio Toyoda took to the stage. We’d already heard that the trigger for this trio of cars came from Toyoda’s visit to Pebble Beach 14 years ago, where he heard that “Toyota designs boring cars”.
His response was to feel “kuyashisa” – a Japanese word often used literally to express “frustration,” “regret,” or “vexation” – but Toyoda himself stood in front of the English word “humiliation” at the world premiere – the harshest translation you can get. “I will never forget that feeling of humiliation,” Toyoda said on stage, via an interpreter. “The pain is definitely the force that drives me even now.”
Wow, when was the last time you heard an automotive executive admit that? He also spoke of his dismay that his products were outclassed, from a performance perspective, around the Nürburgring’s fearsome Nordschleife, so it’s no surprise that the new GR GT has been pounding around it in pre-production testing, as they seek a sub-seven minute laptime.
In that vein, Toyota told us how the road car and race car were designed and built in tandem, with each requirement complementing the other. It really can claim to be a GT3 racing car with road license plates, and if squint hard at its lines, I got a strong sense of Nissan GT-R R32 vibes, which is no bad thing! Has Toyota created its very own JDM Godzilla? Time will tell…
The GR GT was born in a post-Covid world, and we saw photos of Toyota’s engineers all masked as they created the basic layout of the car. They considered a mid-engined layout, as Toyoda had given them a completely open brief, but settled on front-engined, rear-wheel drive. The road version also boasts a small electric motor (hybrids are banned in GT3 racing), that transmits extra power into its wild, rear-mounted transmission – that they proudly showed off in a cutaway format, along with the all-new engine and turbos.
The all-aluminum spaceframe chassis is also incredible to behold, yet just where the LFA Concept – which shares this platform – will store its batteries is an interesting question. Of course, you’d expect it to be four-wheel drive with multiple motors at the front and rear, so there’ll be no need for that carbon torque tube of the GR GT.
While that was on clear display, many details were still under wraps. We expect the GR GT to be on sale at some point in 2027, and we asked questions on pricing many times, with the best response being “reference the road cars of our GT3 racing rivals”. So, if we take that as a Porsche 992.2-gen 911, that’s somewhere north of $200,000 but under $250k.
Another nugget we learned from Humphries was that “when this car is finally finished, it’ll answer Akio’s last request to completely redefine the sound of an electric sportscar.” And perhaps that’s the only sad aspect to this launch, that iconic sound of the LFA’s V10 – which has developed such a cult-like respect in recent years – will likely never be heard again. That was a car which didn’t sell well, because it was probably ahead of its time.
How will the second-gen LFA be regarded, and more to the point, what will it sound like? But you can rest assured about the GR GT, as after a little encouragement a day later at Fuji Speedway, we got to hear the car revved hard in the garage. Stood right behind it, my flapping jeans were a testament to its current 641 horsepower level.
It seems not all Toyotas are boring, after all.
Images: Charles Bradley
