Earlier this month Toyota announced that rally legend Tommi Mäkinen will lead its WRC team as it returns to the top class of rallying starting from 2017.
The former world rally champion will be team principal for Toyota GAZOO Racing, which will use Yaris WRC rally cars to try to defeat VW’s Polo R WRC fleet. But before that happens, Mäkinen tested a rather different car in Finland – a Toyota GT86 4×4 rally car purportedly built specifically for Toyota CEO Akio Toyoda.
We don’t know why Mäkinen chose to test the GT86 4×4 instead of the Yaris WRC, but obviously we don’t regret that he did it.
As the footage shows, he’s still got it and would likely be among the top contenders were he to return to the World Rally Championship as a driver.