Toyota Gazoo Racing will be celebrating the 100th anniversary of the 24 Hours of Le Mans in this year’s race which is scheduled for June 10 and 11 with a special surprise. Besides gathering all of its five Le Mans-winning racecars for a family shot, the automaker teased a mysterious concept that will be equipped with motorsport-derived technologies.
The single teaser shot reveals the lower part of the front end. We can see two sets of quad LEDs flanking the lower intake, a prominent splitter, and canards. Those features suggest that this concept is not an evolution of the reportedly canceled road-going supercar project. The presence of a license plate holder means that it could be based on an existing or future production model. While there is no info available at this point, the upper part of the bumper makes us think it might be a beefed-up version of the Toyota Prius that could also serve as a preview of the rumored GRMN future variant.
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The only part of the official announcement referring to the new concept car confirms it will be “equipped with vehicle technologies that have been developed through numerous challenges in motorsports participation”.
The concept will be part of an exhibition themed after a future Carbon Neutral Society in Japan that will be held at the Circuit de la Sarthe during the race weekend. This likely means that it will use an eco-friendly powertrain which could be Toyota’s hydrogen-fuelled internal combustion engine, although we shouldn’t rule out fully electric or hybrid power.
The exhibition will be held in collaboration with the Japan National Tourism Organization (JNTO) and rival Mazda Motor Corporation which Toyota acknowledges as the first Japanese automaker to win Le Mans back in 1991.
As for the unique gathering of five Le Mans-winning vehicles with the Toyota emblem, it took place earlier this week for the first time. The lineup included the TS050 Hybrid from 2018, 2019, and 2020, plus the GR010 Hybrid from 2021 and 2022. Gazoo Racing also unveiled the new liveries for the Toyota GR010 Hybrid #7 and #8 that will compete this year, hoping to repeat the success of their predecessors.
We will learn more about Toyota‘s mysterious concept in a few weeks’ time at Le Mans, hoping that it will be more than a design and engineering study.
