Toyota Gazoo Racing Treasures from the 2025 Tokyo Auto Salon

- Toyota’s booth at the Tokyo Auto Salon is full of fierce little compact cars.
- Three honed models of the GR Yaris are aimed at street and track.
- Plus there’s a whole section of vintage cars owned by Akio Toyoda himself.
It’s been six years since Toyota last sold a Yaris in the United States, so you can be forgiven for not giving the little subcompact a second thought. However, if we can just direct your attention to a trio of Yarises (Yarii?) currently being shown off over at the Toyota booth at this year’s Tokyo Auto Salon, you may wish to grab a couple of napkins. Because they’ll have you salivating like one of Pavlov’s pups.
Let’s start with a specially prepped GR Yaris, pictured above, that’s aimed straight at the Nürburgring. Intended to compete in the Langstrecken Serie, this hopped-up hatch will take to the ‘Ring eight or nine times this year, battling against as many as 100 rivals from various motorsport clubs running everything from Porsche Caymans to French hot hatchbacks. Prepped by Akio Toyoda himself, running under his Morizo racing nom de guerre, the Yaris is equipped with Toyota’s new performance-oriented eight-speed automatic transmission. It’s hard to think of a more appealing sport compact performance package—except there’s another one parked right next to it.
Wilder than even the flared-out N-ring racing terrier is the GR Yaris M concept, the M standing for its midship-mounted engine. Somewhere, every MR2 owner on the globe just felt a disturbance in the Force, but the good kind. Mounted behind the rear seats in this hatchback is a 2.0-liter turbocharged four-cylinder engine coded G20E. Yes, that’s four-cylinder: while the regular GR Yaris and GR Corolla use one of the most charismatic three-cylinder engines you can buy, this is a new combustion engine under development in the age of EVs.
Toyota plans to run its scrappy little take on the iconic Renault R5 Turbo in Japan’s Super Taikyu racing series, which regularly sees unusual racing concepts. The team is not just looking for wins here, but rather to test this concept to failure again and again, beating out the impurities. Will you see a production mid-engined GR Corolla any time soon? Not likely, but this new turbo four-cylinder might power other Toyota models.
Rounding out the trio is the GR Yaris Aero Package, which Toyota calls a concept vehicle. This is a bit of a fib, as some of the parts on this specially-prepped car are already available as factory-installed accessories, such as the rally-style vertical handbrake. The most eye-catching of the exterior upgrades is a variable attack-angle rear-wing, which can dynamically dump drag in a straight line like F1’s DRS system.
Further to this holy trinity of pint-sized speed merchants is a whole host of available upgrades and parts across the Gazoo Racing range. There are software updates to improve throttle response for the GR86, competition parts for the GR Yaris, and a new catalog of replacement parts for heritage machines like the AE86 and Supra.
Add in Toyoda’s own collection of 1960s cars (everything from a Corolla to a ’62 MG Midget), and you get the sense that Toyota hasn’t lost its enthusiast edge. Its future as a mobility company beckons, with its experimental Woven City project and other forward-looking plans. But Akio still clearly likes to get sideways in small, extremely pissed-off little cars. Us too.
Brendan McAleer is a freelance writer and photographer based in North Vancouver, B.C., Canada. He grew up splitting his knuckles on British automobiles, came of age in the golden era of Japanese sport-compact performance, and began writing about cars and people in 2008. His particular interest is the intersection between humanity and machinery, whether it is the racing career of Walter Cronkite or Japanese animator Hayao Miyazaki’s half-century obsession with the Citroën 2CV. He has taught both of his young daughters how to shift a manual transmission and is grateful for the excuse they provide to be perpetually buying Hot Wheels.
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