Yahoo Autos Toyota CEO hints more GR-branded sports cars are in the pipeline
Toyota will launch an electric-car offensive in the second half of the 2020s under new CEO Koji Sato, but it's not forgetting about enthusiasts. The firm announced that investing more resources into EVs won't spell the end of its performance-focused Gazoo Racing (GR) sub-brand.
"The Gazoo brand will be acknowledged for the future — and maybe we can even speed it up," Sato told British magazine Autocar on the sidelines of the World Endurance Championship (WEC) race held on Belgium's Spa-Francorchamps circuit. "Our Master Driver was also president of the company at the same time as he had a steering wheel in his hand for Gazoo. Now he is only chairman, maybe he will have a lot more time to develop cars for them?," he added, referring to now-retired CEO Akio Toyoda, who spearheaded the sub-brand's launch.
One point worth noting is that his comments contradict statements made by Yasunori Suezawa, the GR86's chief engineer, last October. "There is [sic] none left, actually, so [the GR86] is the last," he announced. Sato is in charge, so he presumably gets the last word.
