- Toyota won’t switch the GR lineup to an EV focus anytime soon, according to a new report.
- The statement comes from Sean Hanley, Toyota Australia’s sales and marketing manager.
- While most Toyotas will see electrification, GR models will remain focused on performance.
Toyota’s Gazoo Racing (GR) lineup is one of the last remaining bastions of combustion performance cars in a world that’s rapidly moving toward electrification. With models like the GR86, GR Corolla, and the GR Supra, Toyota has carved out a solid niche. And now, even as the brand continues to shift toward electrification, there’s good news for enthusiasts: the GR family won’t be ditching gas engines—or manual transmissions—anytime soon.
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“Combustion engines and manual transmissions will be around for a long, long time,” says Sean Hanley, an executive with Toyota in Australia while speaking to CarSales. If this were an infomercial, we’d cue the slow clap. In a world filled with bad or worse news, he’s brought us some things to get excited about.
Over the past few years, cars like the GR Supra, GR Corolla, and GR 86 have continued to make their mark in the enthusiast community. It seems that trend will continue, at least for the foreseeable future, with gas-powered engines and manual gearboxes remaining a key part of Toyota’s performance strategy.
A Firm Commitment to Driving Pleasure
Hanley made it clear that GR was on its own path so to speak. “Even as we transition to electrification, there is still room to satisfy dyed-in-the-wool performance car lovers, and these enthusiasts are not a dying breed,” he said. So, no need to panic and assume Toyota’s about to slather some synthetic exhaust sounds onto an EV prototype to mimic the feeling of a real sports car.
He clarified what he meant stating, “While we’re focused on future electrification for the rest of our model line-up, we plan to keep GR about the sounds, about the smells and the feel of a combustion engine – that snap, crackle and pop we all love so much.” Unless the automaker plans on baking in some petrol-scented diffusers in its EVs, he’s got to be talking about genuine combustion engines.
It’s worth noting in all of this that Hanley wasn’t dogmatic about Toyota‘s approach to performance-oriented cars. He made it clear that the automaker could, in theory, propel a sports-focused car with hydrogen in the future.
Even when the company eventually does venture into electric sports cars, they plan to maintain the core values that make GR cars appealing: raw performance and real driving engagement. Hanley emphasized that the GR brand will still cater to “every car enthusiast and performance fan” with future offerings.
Sounds like a future we can all get behind.
