5 Toyota Gazoo Racing Cars You Didn’t Know Existed

It’s hard to deny that Toyota Gazoo Racing is at the top of its game right now. We crowned the updated GR Yaris our 2024 Car of the Year, and we’re jealous of those bits of the world that can have the Corolla.

While the GR86 is no longer on our shores and the Supra on its way out, it’s all but confirmed that a new MR2 is on the way, and it looks like that’ll be followed by a Celica. No, this is not the year 1994 – delightfully.

The thing is, Gazoo Racing has been working on road cars long before now, though, and much of its work is confined to some real JDM rarities. We’ve picked out five you probably didn’t know existed.

86 GRMN

For much of the life of the Toyota GT86, many cried out for a more powerful version of the car. Its 2.0-litre boxer-four was never blessed with more than 197bhp from the factory, though, and we’d have to wait for the GR86 to sample that platform with more power.

Unless you lived in Japan and were fortunate enough to get your hands on a one-of-100 86 GRMN in 2016.

Granted, it wasn’t exactly a huge leap forward, with an extra 19bhp liberated for a peak of 216bhp. Most of the GRMN’s tweaks were focused on the chassis, with retuned suspension and weight-saving measures through the use of extensive carbon fibre bodywork, with around 45kg lost.

Its braking system also got a significant overhaul, and a new close-ratio six-speed manual gearbox was swapped in. It wasn’t cheap, granted – costing about £35,000, around double the price of a new base 86 in Japan at the time.

Century GRMN

If you were the man in charge of Toyota, what would you do? Akio Toyoda answered that with ‘Toyota Century GRMN’.

Yes, a high-performance version of Toyota’s most luxurious saloon exists, or at least existed. Toyoda was spotted in 2018 being chauffeured in the back of a GRMN-branded Century, and that’s about all we know of the car.

Beyond the GRMN badges, this Century sported racier-looking bodywork, including a carbon fibre spoiler and a new diffuser, plus a set of BBS wheels.

It’s thought this is the only one in existence, and Toyota never officially published details on the car. We’re doubtful a full-scale production will ever happen, but it has confirmed a Century SUV GRMN is in the works, at least.

Vitz GRMN Turbo

Europe got its first taste of Gazoo Racing with the Yaris GRMN in 2018, and was then cruelly denied the Japan-only GRMN version of the GR Yaris.

Neither of those cars was the first Yaris to wear a GRMN badge, though. Sort of. The previous-gen Vitz, as the Yaris was known in Japan until its current generation, takes that honour.

This was the Toyota Vitz GRMN Turbo, which, if that name didn’t give it away, got a turbocharged 1.5-litre four-pot good for 150bhp. Four-pot brakes were fitted to the front axle, a new suspension setup was fitted, and so were 17-inch alloys. Just 200 were made.

iQ GRMN

No, seriously, there was a Toyota iQ GRMN. Better than that, there were two versions.

The first came in 2009, using the then-updated iQ’s new 1.3-litre, 99bhp engine paired up to a six-speed manual gearbox. Stiffer suspension was fitted, rear disc brakes came in place of drums, and 16-inch Rays wheels rounded out an angry-looking little package. 100 of those were made.

Then, somehow, Toyota found space for a supercharger under the bonnet. Thus, the iQ GRMN Supercharger came in 2012 with 120bhp. Imagine that in a car the size of a shoe, and we can only imagine it was a riot. Again, only 100 were built.

Mark X GRMN

In case you’re not familiar with the Toyota Mark X, it was effectively its answer to the BMW 3 Series in Japan until production ended in 2019.

What the Toyota Mark X GRMN wasn’t, sadly, was an answer to the BMW M3. However, it’s still pretty worthy of the badge, we think.

It first came in 2015 with 316bhp coming from a 3.5-litre naturally-aspirated V6, sent to the rear wheels through a six-speed manual gearbox. Oh, and with a proper Torsen-limited slip differential.

100 were made initially, with 350 units of a facelifted version coming in 2019 to wave the Mark X off.