The Toyota Supra Is Entering The World’s Coolest Motorsport

From 2026, at least four GR Supras will be fielded in the brilliant Australia-based Supercars championship

18 Sep 2024

World Rally Championship. World Endurance Championship. NASCAR. British Touring Car Championship. The Dakar Rally. Super GT. One of the many reasons we respect Toyota is its massive factory presence in global motorsport, and from 2026, it’s going to get even bigger as Toyota is set to join one of the coolest motorsport disciplines around: Supercars.

The GR Supra will form the basis of Toyota’s entry into Australia’s major touring car series, which produces consistently close, exciting racing from a field of Ford Mustangs and Chevrolet Camaros powered by howling naturally-aspirated V8s.

The championship was formerly known as V8 Supercars, but changed its name in 2016 ahead of a regulation change that – theoretically – allowed other engine configurations. Despite this, all the competitors have stuck firmly with the V8, and even though the production Supra uses a turbo straight-six, the Supercars version will go the same route as its rivals: it’s set to use a racing version of the naturally aspirated 2UR-GSE 5.0-litre V8, as featured in various Lexus performance cars.

The sport was long defined by the fierce rivalry between Ford and General Motors’ Australian brand, Holden, a rivalry that had a reputation for spilling over into the grandstands. In the 2010s, the manufacturer count briefly went from two to five when Volvo, Nissan and a pair of privately entered Mercedes E63s joined the series, but all three disappeared within a few years.

Following the closure of the Holden brand in 2020, GM’s entry switched over to the Chevrolet Camaro to coincide with new regulations, and since then it’s been a two-way scrap between it and the Mustang. Toyota’s planned entry is the culmination of over 20 years of the brand “toying with” entering the series, according to Sean Hanley, Toyota Australia’s vice president of sales, marketing and franchise operations.

In a strange coincidence, the announcement comes less than a week after one of the series’ Ford Mustangs raced in a special livery inspired by the iconic Castrol TOM’S Toyota Supra JGTC car. We’re rather excited to see some actual Supras hustling their way across the mountaintop at Bathurst in a couple of years.

The first full sentence spoken by an infant Mike was a review of the ride quality of a Volvo 850. It was “Daddy’s car goes bumpy-bump on a bumpy road,” so would probably need proofreading a bit, but it was a start.