Toyota is giving its performance arm a new identity in New Zealand, with Gazoo Racing (GR) now operating as a standalone performance brand focused on motorsport, performance cars and the country's enthusiast community.
The announcement was made at a special event held at Hampton Downs to reveal Toyota's new GRF-70 single-seater racing car, marking what Toyota New Zealand says is the beginning of a new chapter for GR in this market.
While GR remains part of the wider Toyota organisation, the move gives the performance arm a distinct position alongside Toyota and Lexus in New Zealand, with Toyota focused on mainstream mobility and Lexus on luxury.
Toyota New Zealand Chief Strategic Officer Andrew Davis says the aim is to create something bigger than simply a range of performance cars.
“When you own a GR, you're not just buying a car. You're joining a community of people who love driving and enjoy learning, improving and sharing that passion with others,” Davis says.
New Zealand already has a strong enthusiast and motorsport culture, from grassroots karting and club racing to track days and weekend drives, and Toyota wants GR to become a focal point for that community.
“Whenever we reach out and say we're doing something with GR, they hear,” Davis said at the launch event.
“They just absolutely love it, and being able to bottle that passion and the GR brand supports the fact that we're pushing into a standalone space.”
He later summed up the company's ambition more simply: “I just want to make customers smile, and that's kind of the essence of what it's about.”
From racing to road cars
Gazoo Racing's origins are closely tied to Toyota chairman Akio Toyoda, a keen motorsport enthusiast who began competing under the Team Gazoo name in the 2000s.
The philosophy that emerged from those early racing efforts became central to GR: use motorsport as a proving ground to identify weaknesses, learn from them and apply those lessons to road cars.
Toyota's official GR philosophy is essentially “track to road”, with competition in events including the World Rally Championship, World Endurance Championship, Dakar Rally and Nürburgring 24 Hours feeding directly into the development of production models.
GR Yaris project manager Hiroyuki Yamada was also at the New Zealand launch, explaining how pushing cars to their limits in competition allows engineers to uncover and address weaknesses that might not otherwise become apparent.
That development process is part of Toyota's broader Kaizen philosophy of continuous improvement, with the lessons learned through motorsport feeding not only into GR's core performance models but also GR Sport vehicles and performance parts.
“Every GR vehicle exists because it was tested, challenged and refined in competition,” Davis says. “That's the philosophy behind Gazoo Racing and the reason every GR carries genuine motorsport DNA. Motorsport doesn't sit alongside our road cars – it helps create them.”
The idea represents a significant change from Toyota's traditional reputation for building sensible, dependable cars rather than performance machines. Davis points back to the early days of the Toyota Racing Series in New Zealand, launched in 2004, as part of the local motorsport journey.
That evolution eventually led to Toyota Gazoo Racing becoming a familiar presence in New Zealand, with the GR Supra arriving in 2019, followed by the GR Yaris in 2020, GR86 (changing its name from just 86) in 2022 and GR Corolla in 2023.
Now Toyota wants to build a stronger identity around the entire ecosystem.
More than just GR cars
The standalone brand will encompass Toyota's core GR performance cars, but also GR Sport models, GR Parts, motorsport and owner activities.
GRMN, or Gazoo Racing Meister of Nürburgring, sits at the top of the range as Toyota's limited-production, high-performance offering, while GR Sport brings elements of the GR philosophy to more mainstream Toyota models through chassis tuning, styling and other changes.
GR Parts will allow owners to personalise and enhance their cars with motorsport-inspired components, while Toyota New Zealand is planning a stronger programme of events and experiences around the brand.
Over the next 12 months, Toyota says it will work with its dealer network and GR customers to create more opportunities to experience GR products, develop specialist GR expertise within dealerships and give owners greater confidence to personalise and maintain their cars.
That community focus is also being reinforced by the appointment of Walkinshaw TWG Racing driver Ryan Wood as New Zealand's first Gazoo Racing Brand Guardian.
Wood, who drives a GR Supra in the Australian Supercars Championship, says the community aspect of motorsport has been fundamental throughout his career.
“The racing community has been a pretty big part of my life, like being part of a footy club or something like that. It's a real big family network for us,” he said.
Wood's own ambitions are now closely tied to Toyota's Supercars programme, with the driver targeting Toyota's first Bathurst win and a championship.
A new identity for Toyota's performance cars
Globally, Toyota has increasingly separated the roles of its brands, with GR now becoming its clear home for performance driving and motorsport, alongside Toyota's broader mobility focus and Lexus's luxury positioning.
For New Zealand, the company believes the opportunity is to take that global identity and build something specifically around the local enthusiast community.
“Challenge creates learning. Learning creates better cars,” Davis says. “That's been the philosophy behind Gazoo Racing from the very beginning.”
And while modern car development is increasingly shaped by technology and artificial intelligence, Davis says the defining characteristic of GR remains much more human.
“It's the people, the feeling, that passion, the emotion, and the mindset,” he says. “That is really there to make the difference.”
Toyota's stated goal for the next phase of GR in New Zealand, then, isn't simply to sell more performance cars. It is to turn the brand into a community - one that connects the GR Yaris, GR Corolla, GR86 and Supra with motorsport, track days, genuine performance parts and the people who simply enjoy driving.
