A Trip Through Toyota’s New GR Garage Experience Center

Toyota’s motorsports resume is a lot longer than you might expect. Long before Gazoo Racing was stamping GR badges onto Corollas, Supras, and the occasional RAV4, Toyota was racing across the Australian Outback, battling American muscle cars in IMSA, and building some of the most successful prototype racers ever to cross the finish line.

Near the Toyota Experience Center in Plano, Texas, the automaker has gathered an impressive collection of vehicles from its racing past. There’s a little bit of everything here: a 1957 Toyopet Crown that helped launch Toyota’s international racing ambitions, a legendary desert-racing pickup, a Le Mans prototype packing 1000 horsepower, and even a few cars from more recent spec series.

Here’s a look at some of the machines that helped build Toyota’s motorsports legacy at the new GR Garage Experience Center.

From the moment you walk into Toyota’s GR Experience Center, it’s obvious nearly every inch of this place has been curated to celebrate the brand’s motorsports history. Racing memorabilia, suspension components, and die-cast cars decorate the walls and many office rooms at the unassuming facility. It’s equal parts museum and shrine that honors the Japanese company’s obsession with racing.

1957 Toyopet Crown

Toyota’s international motorsports career began not with a World Rally car, but with this. In 1957, a Toyopet Crown entered the Mobilgas Round Australia Rally, an extraordinarily demanding endurance event covering thousands of miles of Australia's unforgiving landscape. The Crown finished 47th overall and third among foreign entries. They didn’t take home the trophy for first place, but surviving the 19-day endurance trial was plenty to brag about. More importantly, the experience exposed weaknesses Toyota would address in future vehicles.

1968 Toyota 2000GT

Long before the Supra, there was the 2000GT. Toyota enlisted legendary American racer and car builder Carroll Shelby to develop the beautiful sports car for SCCA competition in 1968. Only three were prepared for the program, with Scooter Patrick driving the No. 33 car pictured here. The 2000GT’s 2.0-liter inline-six produced roughly 200 horsepower in racing trim, and the Shelby-prepared Toyotas proved surprisingly competitive against Porsche. Patrick finished second in the C-Production championship standings.

1986 Toyota Celica GTO

Don’t let the Celica badge fool you. This is about as closely related to a production Celica as a NASCAR stock car is to the sedan it resembles. Developed by Dan Gurney’s All American Racers, the IMSA GTO Celica used a tube-frame chassis, rear-wheel drive, and a heavily turbocharged inline-four engine producing as much as 600 horsepower. In 1987, Chris Cord and Toyota captured the IMSA GTO drivers’ and manufacturers’ championships. Not bad for a highly dramatized economy car.

1991 Ivan Stewart PPI Toyota Truck

Few vehicles are more immediately recognizable in off-road racing than Ivan “Ironman” Stewart’s red-and-white Toyota trucks. Built by Precision Preparation Inc. (PPI), these machines helped Stewart become one of the most successful drivers in desert racing history. Across his career, Stewart accumulated 84 victories and 10 championships, including 17 Baja 500 wins and three Baja 1000 victories. His nickname came from his willingness to tackle grueling desert events without a co-driver. Just imagine spending hundreds of miles bouncing around inside this thing. Sadly, most of us have only driven one of these via the Ironman “Ivan” Offroad Racing arcade game.

Toyota Eagle MkIII

My absolute favorite in the room, and easily the most intimidating. Developed by Dan Gurney’s All American Racers, the Eagle MkIII competed in IMSA’s outrageously fast GTP category during the early 1990s. A turbocharged inline-four engine produced more than 800 horsepower, while its sophisticated aerodynamics generated enormous downforce. With Juan Manuel Fangio II leading the charge, the Eagle helped Toyota capture consecutive IMSA GTP manufacturers’ championships in 1992 and 1993. At one point, the Eagle won 17 consecutive races. It was so dominant that very little competition remained.

2012 Lexus LFA Nürburgring Race Car

The Lexus LFA was already an engineering spectacle, thanks largely to its screaming 4.8-liter V-10. But Toyota wasn’t content to let its supercar spend its life sitting in collectors’ garages. The LFA became an important part of the early Gazoo Racing effort, participating in grueling endurance races at the Nürburgring. The program also helped Toyota develop its philosophy of using motorsports to improve road cars, with company chairman Akio Toyoda personally participating in racing and vehicle development.

Lexus LFA Nurburgring Package

Lexus decided that another 10 horses, sharper suspension, quicker shifts, and a gigantic fixed carbon-fiber wing were needed for the LFA. And they were right. The resulting Nürburgring Package was originally limited to just 50 examples. In 2011, one lapped the Nürburgring in 7:14.64, an astonishing time for a road car of its era. Just to the right of the LFA sits a Toyota Supra MkIV, the very one Toyota master driver Hiromu Naruse used to teach Akio Toyoda how to hustle a car.

2015 Toyota TS040 Hybrid

Before Toyota finally conquered the 24 Hours of Le Mans, it built this legendary hybrid prototype. The TS040 combined a 3.7-liter V-8 with electric motors driving both axles, producing approximately 1000 horsepower. Rather than conventional batteries, the car used supercapacitors to store energy recovered during braking. Toyota won both the World Endurance Championship manufacturers’ and drivers’ titles in 2014, before introducing an extensively revised version of the TS040 for 2015.

Lexus RC F GT3

The Lexus RC F GT3 seen here, yawning with its giant grille, has spent many years competing in motorsports. Its 5.4-liter V-8 engine helped Vasser Sullivan Racing become a formidable competitor in IMSA, despite facing newer, turbocharged rivals. The team captured the 2023 GTD Pro championship, with victories at Watkins Glen and Long Beach. It followed that up with a class victory at the 2024 12 Hours of Sebring. 2026 was the RC F’s final year in IMSA, and it will be replaced at the 24 Hours of Daytona in January by the GR GT3 race car.

Toyota GR Supra GT4

The Supra’s return to the street also brought a new Toyota race car. Developed for customer racing in the GT4 category, the GR Supra GT4 shares its 3.0-liter turbocharged inline-six with the road-going Supra, but adds suspension, brakes, aerodynamics, and a stripped-out interior that’s only tolerable in race cars. Its initial specification produced approximately 430 horsepower, subject to racing balance-of-performance regulations. Unlike the wild prototypes elsewhere in this collection, the Supra GT4 remains closely related to something you might drive to work.

Toyota GR86 Cup Car

Think of the GR86 Cup Car as the affordable end of Toyota’s motorsports spectrum. Built for Toyota’s single-make GR Cup racing series, which began in 2023, the car retains the production model’s 2.4-liter flat-four engine but replaces its manual transmission with a six-speed sequential gearbox. The goal is to provide drivers with relatively accessible, closely matched machinery that emphasizes driving talent instead of checkbook size. Plus, it’s one of the few cars in the museum that you can also drive in iRacing.

Toyota GR Corolla TC

Developed for SRO’s TC America touring-car championship, the GR Corolla TC starts with Toyota’s 300-hp, turbocharged 1.6-liter three-cylinder engine and retains the GR-Four all-wheel-drive system. Interestingly, it also uses the production car’s eight-speed automatic transmission. The transformation includes upgraded suspension, Alcon brakes, a roll cage, and aggressive aerodynamic bodywork.

➡️ Skip the lot. Let Car and Driver help you find your next car.

Austin Irwin has worked for Car and Driver for over 10 years in various roles. He's steadily worked his way from an entry-level data entry position into driving vehicles for photography and video, and is now reviewing and testing cars. What will he do next? Who knows, but he better be fast.

For Sale Near You

See all results for used Toyota for sale near 0

News

Recall: Navigator Front Seat May Move on Its Own

New Lotus Esprit Supercar Will Pack a 670-hp V-8

Polestar Formula 2030 Concept Wears Futuristic Design

Acura Gives Its 2027 Lineup a New Urban Spec Trim

Toyota Revives Scion Name on Kei Truck for the U.S.