Toyota’s Building A Small-Scale Nurburgring In Japan

Toyota is working on a new research and development center back home in Japan. And it will reportedly include a track replicating parts of the infamous Nürburgring Nordschleife.

According to Nikkei Asian Review, the vast R&D facility will take up some two and a half square miles of Japan’s Aichi prefecture, and incorporate 11 test tracks.

One of those will seek to emulate the straights, curves, dips, and climbs of the Nordschleife… but only in part. As reported by Motor1.com, the track will run some 5.3 kilometers – about 3.3 miles, or about a quarter the length of the German circuit. It will also incorporate some 250 feet in elevation changes, compared to 1,000-foot difference between the highest and lowest points on the Nordschleife.

Replicating the entire circuit would take over 12 square miles, or about five times the area currently earmarked for the whole R&D facility. It’s a heck of an undertaking, though, especially when you consider a) how small and densely packed much of the Japanese islands are, and b) there’ll be ten other tracks included in the facility.

Though Japan has several world-class racing circuits, the closest the country is said to have to the Nürburgring is actually a mountain toll road. Called the Hakone Shindō, the two-lane bypass runs 8.6 miles through the mountains of the Kanagawa prefecture outside of Tokyo.

Toyota, for one, has also been known to test its performance vehicles extensively at the German track. So much so, in fact, that its tuning division GRMN styles itself as the “Masters of the Nurburgring,” and the automaker’s last real supercar – the Lexus LFA – received a hardcore Nurburgring package.

The new complex is expected to cost nearly $3 billion to build, and will surely save many of Toyota’s engineers from having to travel to Germany and elsewhere around the world. The first of the facilities are anticipated to open early next year, but it’s expected to take until 2023 for the full site to come online.