Last week, Toyota dropped a motorsport bomb by announcing its (sort of) return to F1 via a partnership with Haas. Admittedly the reveal of the new GR Corolla TC racecar in North Carolina is going to cause fewer ripples internationally - but it is further evidence of the firm’s apparently inexhaustible enthusiasm for proving its competitive mettle, no matter the backdrop. Moreover, it has resulted in a great-looking touring car, and we can never get enough of those. Especially if the arrival of the road-legal variant in Europe - a subject long-mooted in these pages, and now rumoured more broadly - turns out to be true.
But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. For now, the newcomer is very much an American concept: it was created to compete against the likes of the Honda Civic Type R and Mini Cooper JCW in next year’s TC America Series - a newly condensed, single-class touring car championship. Toyota will not feature as a factory team, with the Corolla being made available to race teams and privateers - although it’s still very much about growing the manufacturer’s presence in regional motorsport, and the car’s reveal coincided with confirmation that its racing division will now be formally known as Toyota Gazoo Racing North America.
The TC derivative itself is notable because it retains the GR-FOUR system - apparently making it the first all-wheel-drive car in the competition. In fact, its relationship with the road-legal model is extensive: the 1.6-litre three-pot is kept too (albeit with a new race-specific Bosch ECU) as well as the new eight-speed automatic. The latter gets a new control unit too, and Toyota has significantly beefed up the cooling of the drivetrain generally and added custom-made MacPherson struts and JRi dual-adjustable dampers. Additionally, while the front and rear Torsen diffs remain, TC regulations require them to work with a fixed ratio - so there won’t be any adaptive shuffling of the torque distribution. But there will be six-piston Alcon brakes and entirely different parameters for the ABS. Not to mention much more senior wheels and tyres.
Inside, it’s much as you’d expect it to be, with most of the interior trim carved out to make room for an FIA-approved roll cage and OMP fibreglass race seat. There’s proper steering wheel too, with paddles to match - although the stock gear lever remains as does the bulk of the dash. “The opportunity to take the GR Corolla and make it a track-ready racecar with the team here at TGRNA was exciting project to tackle,” said Mike Norem, manager of the customer racing department. “We knew that the GR Corolla was the ideal platform for this series and would provide the perfect opportunity for our team to continue to grow the GR sports car ladder in the United States.” Toyota says it is even hoping to snare some ‘track day enthusiasts’. They’ll surely need deep pockets. But what a way to move up one rung.
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