Toyota Gazoo Racing Teases Mysterious Concept Ahead Of Le Mans Reveal

What if it's a Prius?

By: Adrian Padeanu

May 26, 2023 at 6:02am ET

Comment

Color us intrigued. Toyota Gazoo Racing has announced it will unveil a new concept car at this year's 24 Hours of Le Mans scheduled to take place during the June 10-11 weekend. The endurance race will celebrate this 100^th anniversary and Toyota's motorsport arm will be putting on quite the show at the famous Circuit de la Sarthe. For example, the GR Corolla experimental race car powered by a hydrogen-fueled combustion engine will be there.

However, we're more eager to see whatever is hiding here in the shadows. Logically, Toyota Gazoo Racing remains cryptic about the vehicle's identity, only saying it's "equipped with vehicle technologies that have been developed through numerous challenges in motorsports." The front bumper tells us it's not related to the GR Super Sport hypercar, which has allegedly been axed after one of the prototypes apparently went up in flames during testing nearly two years ago.

What else could it be? The fact there's a license plate holder tells us the concept is linked to a production vehicle. Call us crazy, but it might just be a 2023 Prius dressed up as a race car. We're making this wild assumption based on the position of the tow hook covers on the front bumper. Their shape is seemingly identical to those fitted to the road-going hybrid/plug-in hybrid vehicle.

A GR-branded Prius wouldn't be totally surprising considering Toyota has been selling the GR Sport Prius in Japan since 2017. Of course, it's all speculation on our part for the time being, but what if this is indeed a fully fledged GR Prius instead of having only a body kit and some stickers?

The Prius has never been an attractive car until this new generation. It’s also never been even remotely sporty, so perhaps Toyota is ready to inject some pizzazz into the hybrid pioneer, albeit in concept form.