Gazoo Racing drums up twincharged 320-horsepower Toyota GT86
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Gazoo Racing (full name: Gazoo Racing Masters of Nürburgring) has unveiled a concept racing version of the famed Toyota GT86 that features both a turbocharger and a supercharger to offer up 320 horsepower and 310 pound-feet of torque.
The car, officially called the Sport FR Concept, oozes high performance out of its fenders and includes Gazoo brakes, spoilers and suspension tuning, according to FT86Club.com. However, few specifics were available.
Toyota teamed up with Gazoo earlier this year to help jump start it's small-displacement engines. Earlier this year, Toyota gave the green light to the iQ Supercharger. Gazoo was expected to build about 100 of those cars.
Toyota GT 86, Lexus LFA racers ready for Nürburgring 24 Hours
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Toyota and Lexus are gearing up for this year's Nüburgring 24 Hours. The two companies plan to take to the track with a total of five entries, including four Toyota GT 86 race cars and one Lexus LFA. Prepped by factory tuner Gazoo Racing, the LFA will compete in the SP8 class while two of the GT 86 models will go fender-to-fender in the SP3 class. Those will be joined by two more GT 86 racers built by Toyota Motorsport and competing under the Toyota Swiss Racing Team banner in the V3 class for production vehicles.
Gazoo Racing has already had a little fun at the Nüburgring this year. While competing at two shorter events at the legendary track, the LFA took home two wins. This year's 24-hour endurance race kicks off this weekend, May 17-20. The even will be streamed online here and here. Scroll down for the quick press release. Continue Reading..............................
Toyota takes title of World's Largest Automaker... again, for now
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Now that the title of world's largest maker has become a clear and eager battle, we can expect more regular updates on the progress of the combatants. Bloomberg reports that Toyota snagged the #1 crown in Q1, taking it away from General Motors with 2.49 million units sold across its five brands compared to 2.28 million for GM. Volkswagen was just another tenth down at 2.19 million units sold.
What all three might appreciate even more than the crown – except for VW, who is monomaniacal about the No. 1 tag – is that sales volumes and profitability are up, at least in America. Toyota's sales rebound from the catastrophes of last year (and indeed, the last few years) is being underlined by its performance here, where the Prius Plug-In is the third-best seller against a background of the nation's best car sales market in five years. Even with double its usual fleet sales in Q1, Toyota expects this financial year's profits to double.
The year isn't over yet and it remains close, but for now it looks like there'll be good news for everyone. Well, until 2016, when Volkswagen is predicted to vanquish all challengers at the top of the podium, two years ahead of its own ridiculously ambitious schedule. News Source: Bloomberg
With an epic chassis and the lowest center of gravity in the business, there's plenty for enthusiast to love about the Scion FR-S. Except, that is, for those who prefer to take their nimble, affordable sports cars with the roof down. Their choices are rather limited in this price category to the Mazda MX-5 and Ford Mustang, but if the latest reports prove accurate, the FR-S – which is, of course, virtually identical to the Subaru BRZ and sold overseas as the Toyota GT 86 – is preparing to throw its hat in the ring, as well.
Long rumored, a convertible version of the jointly-developed "Toyobaru" coupe could stand to boost sales figures and help the bean-counters justify the expenditure on the new platform. However while the speedster concept recently showcased at Long Beach lost its rear seats (along with most of its windshield), Car and Driver predicts that the FR-S convertible will keep the auxiliary pair in the back – though the addition of a folding roof mechanism would likely mean that would come at the expense of most of the trunk room.
We're told to expect the FR-S convertible to arrive sometime late in 2013 or early in 2014, with a price tag that would tack a few grand onto the coupe's $25,000 MSRP. Look for the same 2.0-liter, 200-horsepower boxer four to carry over with a choice of six-speed transmissions in either manual or automatic configurations. Beyond that, Toyota may be considering basing a larger four-door sedan and coupe off the new platform, which could stand to make the money men back at headquarters – to say nothing of the enthusiasts – even more happy.
Toyota has had some recent setbacks, what with last year's natural disasters and its lengthy recall problems. But according to Bloomberg, the carmaker is back on track, and is expected to post its largest profit in five years. Toyota reports financial results for its fiscal year tomorrow, and is expected to have a $10 billion net income, which would put Toyota ahead of General Motors in earnings, according to the report.
The Japanese automaker is expected to forecast a 12 percent sales growth for next year, which would make it the largest global carmaker by revenue, though Volkswagen is expected to lead in earnings. Bloomberg reports that Toyota's 2012 calendar year sales are expected to increase 21 percent, to 9.58 million units, which would be a record for the automaker. Toyota shares on the Tokyo stock exchange are up 22 percent for the year.
Judge dismisses most Toyota economic-loss claims from New York, Florida
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Even though Toyota's unintended acceleration debacle is as ancient as Jurassic fleas for most of us, the California Distric Court of Judge James Selna is still chainsawing through a massive docket of claims. Judge Selna had been considering whether plaintiffs in California, New York and Florida could sue Toyota for economic loss related to the claims of unintended accleraton – the plaintiffs wanted Toyota to reimburse them for the alleged decline in value of their cars.
According to a report in Bloomberg, Selna issued a final ruling that the New York and Florida plaintiffs can't sue for economic loss if they didn't experience unintended acceleration, or if they didn't experience "a measurable loss" when selling their cars. California plaintiffs, on the other hand, can sue even if there was no unintended acceleration event or perceived depreciation.
The ruling could remove millions of owners from of plaintiffs and make an economic-loss class action lawsuit more difficult, but plaintiffs attorneys have said they'll try to get the cases tried in New York and Florida courts. However, the ruling doesn't affect other plaintiffs suing over the same issue in other states. This doesn't affect the unintended accleration cases, though; three litmus-test trials are scheduled for next year.
Toyota working on even more exotic followup to Lexus LFA?
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Many countries have produced supercars with price tags that dip into the six figures, but that rare breed of exotic that fetches upwards of a quarter million is all but completely exclusive to Europe: Ferrari, Lamborghini and Pagani out of Italy, Bugatti from France, McLaren and higher-end Aston Martin models of Britain, top-of-the-line Porsche offerings from Germany, Koenigsegg of Sweden and so on. That's what makes the Lexus LFA so exceptional. It extends beyond the Acura NSX and the Nissan GT-R that previously defined the top end of Japanese supercars and joins its European rivals at the very top of the market. But that, we're reading, is only the beginning.
According to a shadowy anonymous source cornered by AutoGuide, Toyota is already working on a successor to the LFA, and their mole says the car will be even more exotic, more powerful and more expensive. Just what that entails when the LFA is already limited to 500 examples, packs a 552-horsepower 4.8-liter V10 and costs $375,000 has us conjuring up images of an animé take on the Bugatti Veyron. AG suggests the car could nudge the million-dollar mark with production limited to just 100 examples.
Could it be a production version of the LF-LC concept? It's probably too early to tell. In fact, we're going to go ahead and take this entire rumor with a few shakers-worth of salt and advise you to consider doing the same.
Toyota pushes back TS030 race debut after test-session crash
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"Mentsch tracht, Gott lacht," goes the old Yiddish proverb. Man plans, God laughs. And that certainly applies to motor racing, where engineers, mechanics, strategists... entire teams spend day and night over the course of months preparing to campaign their new race car, only for it all to go horribly wrong at the last minute. And that's what the folks at Toyota Motorsport GmbH in Cologne, Germany, are apparently facing now.
After having their Formula One program shut down a couple of years ago by corporate headquarters, Toyota Motorsport has been hunting for a new project ever since. That new project turned out to be the TS030 Hybrid, an advanced Le Mans prototype which they've been gearing up to campaign in the new FIA World Endurance Championship and its headline event, the 24 Hours of Le Mans. Only those plans were set back some – if not ground to a halt – last Wednesday when the only working example of the TS030 crashed while undergoing testing at the Paul Ricard circuit in the South of France.
In the statement after the jump, Toyota doesn't specify exactly what happened or who was driving at the time, but you can be sure he's feeling pretty morose right now, because the chassis was damaged so extensively that the team won't be able to repair it in time for the Six Hours of Spa where the car was supposed to make its race debut on May 5. Toyota does, however, expect to be up and running again in time for Le Mans in June, although whether that will leave the team with enough time to build the two cars it was expecting to field there or have to revert to a single entrant remains to be seen.
Cartel Customs to showcase Scion FR-S Speedster at Long Beach
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When an automaker comes out with a two-door sportscar, you know what will come next: a roadster version. But while we haven't heard anything from Toyota, its Scion division or its partner in crime Subaru on the prospect of a GT 86/FR-S/BRZ convertible, a California coachbuilder has stepped up to the plate with a concept version of its own.
The Scion FR-S Speedster concept you see here was worked up by Cartel Customs, a company with a history of chopping the roofs off of Scions. But while the lack of roof and chopped-down windscreen are what set it apart, Cartel hasn't stopped there. The aftermarket outfit also installed a giant 61-inch rear wing and upgraded the suspension, brakes, rolling stock, exhaust and clutch, and gave the open cockpit a hot rod-style retrofit, too.
Although this appears to be a one-off chop-job, the fact that it's set to kick off the festivities at the Toyota-sponsored Long Beach Grand Prix CART race this weekend has us raising an eyebrow like Cartel Customs has raised the roof on this beauty you can check out in greater detail in the high-res image gallery.
Toyota to field GT 86 pair at the Nurburgring 24 - could WRC be far behind? [w/video]
Via autoblog og youtube:
You don't build a chassis as superbly balanced and capable as that which underpins the Subaru BRZ, Toyota GT 86 and Scion FR-S without taking it racing. Fortunately the Japanese auto marques involved have plenty of competition spirit coursing through their veins, and are already gearing up to take the nimble little sportscar racing at events around the world.
Subaru recently unveiled the GT300 racing version of the BRZ which it will be fielding in Japan's SuperGT series, and now Toyota is following suit with the announcement that it will be bringing not one, but two examples of its GT 86 to the Nürburgring to compete in the grueling 24-hour race there next month. The pair of cars – whose level of modification remains unclear – will be fielded by the company's own Gazoo Racing team alongside one Lexus LFA.
Toyota's racing plans for the GT 86 extend beyond the 'Ring, however, as it has revealed a program to support privateer teams fielding the car domestically in both the Super Taikyu Endurance Series and All-Japan Rally Championship. The latter announcement crucially comes at a time when rumors have resurfaced of Toyota preparing to re-enter the World Rally Championship – a series which the Japanese automaker dominated in the 1990s with four Drivers' Championships and three Constructors' Championships.
