New Toyota Boss Pledges More GR Models Coming in the Future

Toyota Chairman and Former President/CEO Akio Toyoda

The resignation of long-serving Toyota president and CEO Akio Toyoda has raised concerns from sportscars enthusiasts worldwide. With ‘Mr. Morizo’ himself now gone from the top brass, fans worried that the new management team might pull the Gazoo Racing (GR) plug for good, with the marque’s plan to revise its electromobility adoption strategy further fuelling this sentiment.

Toyota's newly-appointed President and CEO Koji Sato

But thankfully, the firm’s newly-appointed president and CEO Koji Sato apparently is on board with his predecessor on keeping Toyota’s performance arm alive, with the new boss hinted that the GR line-up could even grow in future’s time.

All-new Toyota GR & GR Sport line-up unveiled for the Malaysian market earlier this year

Speaking to Autocar UK, Toyota’s new CEO said, "The Gazoo brand will be acknowledged for the future – and maybe we can even speed it up." With then president Akio Toyoda now appointed as the automaker’s new chairman, Sato said ‘Mr. Morizo’ now "has a lot more time to develop cars" for the GR division, of which he himself founded back in 2007.

“Our Master Driver 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?” Sato added.

2023 Toyota GR 86 (left) & rendered image of the 'new' Toyota GR86 Hybrid (right).
Photo Credit: Best Car Web

As expected, the new boss won’t go deep down into the details on what loyal fans can expect to come in near future. Aptly, there has not been much rumours pertaining to future GR models coming soon. We’ve previously reported on the rumour suggesting that next-gen Toyota GR86 model might feature some form of electrification on its powertrain, possibly being a straight-up series-parallel hybrid.

2021 Toyota Sports EV Concept

Aside from that, the automaker also briefly showed an EV roadster concept back in 2021, dubbed as the ‘Sports EV’. As expected, fans quickly coined this new concept as the spiritual successor to the famed MR2, thanks to the similar body style, albeit with a different kind of powertrain.

Should this model come into fruition as the first-ever all-electric GR model, it will surely go hand-to-hand with several other compact EV sportscar like the recently-unveiled MG Cyberster, the yet-to-be-launched Tesla Roadster, or even several upcoming EV roadsters like the next-gen Porsche 718 Boxster/Cayman and the all-electric Alpine A110 successor.