Toyota Gazoo Racing Teases New Concept Model

In conjunction with the 100th anniversary of the 24 Hour of Le Mans racing this year, Toyota Gazoo Racing (GR) has cooked up something special behind its garage doors. Ahead of its debut at this year’s Le Mans racing, Toyota’s performance arm has unveiled a new teaser of an upcoming GR concept model.

Typical of any new model teaser, Toyota GR only revealed a shadow-draped image of the new GR concept. What makes it worse is the fact that the concept model showcased in said image is hiding partially behind the GR garage shutter, only unveiling the lower part of its front bumper.

The brightened the teaser image (left) & the current-gen Toyota Prius (right)

The automotive world quickly jumped on board to decipher what model is hiding behind the garage door. Numerous automotive sites like Motor1 and Autocar have pointed out that this new GR model might be based off the fifth-gen Toyota Prius, as the car in said teaser image sports similar-looking bumper design with the new hybrid model.

Beyond the bumper, both cars also share a similar tow hook cover position, with two of them flanking the centre-mounted licence plate holder. Speaking of licence plates, they are also placed in similar positions. Apart from that, nothing much can be derived from this teaser image.

Japan-only Toyota Prius GR Sport, based on the previous-gen Prius

Back to the rumours, the idea of seeing a GR-badged Prius wouldn’t be totally surprising, as Toyota have been selling the Prius GR Sport in the Japanese market for years. Though not a full-fledged GR model, its existence is just enough to prove that there’s a market for a souped-up Prius, especially for the more stunning next-gen model.

The fifth-gen Toyota Prius PHEV

Now that Toyota is upshifting its electromobility adoption plan, a performance-oriented electrified model would make sense not only to showcase the firm’s electrified powertrain capabilities, but also driving sales for other electrified models. With this teased GR model only being a concept model, it’s also possible that Toyota is trying to get the public’s reaction to an electrified GR sportscar.

But more importantly, this teaser indicates that Toyota is not pulling the GR plug for good yet. We’ve previously reported that Toyota’s newly-appointed CEO Koji Sato will keep the marque’s performance arm alive, while hinting that a new GR model might be launched in future’s time.

The new Toyota GR concept model will make its global debut later this year at the 24 Hours of Le Mans 2023, taking place from June 10th to 11th, 2023. Only by then we’ll get to see whether these rumours are true or otherwise.