The ‘Masters of the Nurburgring’ expand their influence.
Trademarks have been filed across Europe by Japanese carmaker Toyota, setting aside ‘GR’ badging for its Yaris family hatch and 86 sports car, suggesting a further expansion of its Gazoo Racing division. We’ve already seen the Yaris GRMN and Yaris GR-Sport, and so the ‘GR’ badge would be a third ‘performance’ badge, which could denote a different product lineup altogether. With GRMN already shown on the supercharged Yaris, and GR-Sport applied to the Yaris Hybrid, it’s likely that the GR badge would denote a more-usable but also more-potent variant.
This marks Toyota’s continued efforts to widen the reach of its Gazoo Racing performance subdivision, with the impending Supra sitting as the halo car for the brand. They’ve also shown their intent to broaden their appeal with the warm Yaris Hybrid GR-Sport, showing its capability to do more than just slightly-unhinged cars like the Yaris GRMN.
Critically though is the trademark filed for a GR-badged 86 sports car. This could mean that Toyota is at long last answering the call for more power, as more potency would be demanded to justify the price premium that a GR 86 and GR Yaris would hold above the vanilla variants. It would also give the 86 and Yaris a sweet note to end on, as the current models are coming near the end of their life-cycle.
Gazoo has fettled with the 86 before, showing a GR HV concept last year at the Tokyo motorshow. When quizzed by Autocar, a Toyota spokesperson said they were not permitted to comment on the trademark filings. However, we’ve decided to be hopeful and cross our fingers that a hotter 86 sports car might be on its way.
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