Toyota Gazoo Racing looks to unveil a concept car at Le Mans

Toyota Gazoo Racing has been at the forefront of endurance racing in the last seven years, taking multiple victories in the LMP1 Class, which is the top-tier class when it comes to endurance racing.

With a lot of name rivals joining and re-joining the World Endurance Championship this year with the likes of Ferrari and Cadillac, the Japanese brand wants them to know that they are still the kings of this racing series with a host of activities planned at the most prestigious and widely-recognized endurance event of the season, the 24 Hours of Le Mans.

One of these activities includes a new motorsport car unveiling, which sadly won’t be the Toyota GR Hypercar we have been promised a couple of years ago. However, these are still exciting times, with Toyota Gazoo Racing saying that “this concept car equipped with vehicle technologies that have been developed through numerous challenges in motorsports participation will be exhibited.” This gives us clues as to what kind of vehicle the Japanese motorsport arm will unveil, which could likely be some form of an electrified race car or a hybrid. Remember the hydrogen-powered Toyota GR Corolla used in Super Taikyu? That car will have an exhibition run before the unveiling of this new motorsport vehicle. 

The sole photo that Toyota Gazoo Racing teased for this unveiling points to the car having a license plate holder. So it is highly probable that this vehicle is a production vehicle transformed into a race car. Probably the Toyota Prius, as the brand is aiming in a direction for more sustainable motorsport.

It’s not unheard of, either. The Toyota Prius was transformed into a Super GT race car back in 2012 in the form of the GT300 Toyota Prius, wherein various iterations have been updated to keep up with each Super GT season, with some versions even boasting a hybrid V8 engine. 

Seeing as the next-generation Toyota Prius was just unveiled a few months ago, could we see another GT300 Toyota Prius in a few days? We will find out on June 10, 2023.