The first Toyota GR Corolla in Australia made a low-key cameo appearance at the Bathurst 1000.
The arrival of the 2023 Toyota GR Corolla in Australian showrooms has moved a step closer, with the appearance of the first evaluation car at Mount Panorama during the Bathurst 1000 race weekend.
The Toyota GR Corolla was parked alongside Toyota Australia’s GR ‘experience centre’ on the exit of Hell Corner (the first turn), just past the pit exit at the start of Mountain Straight, where the company’s guests and members of its Gazoo Racing Club were watching the action throughout the Bathurst weekend.
While the main Bathurst 1000 race is restricted to V8-powered Fords and Holdens, Toyota repeated last year’s ambush marketing campaign around the circuit – with extensive Gazoo Racing signage – and continued to hold a round of its Toyota 86 racing championship to support the main V8 race.
The red GR Corolla display car arrived in Australia last month, and is described by Toyota as a ‘sample car’ – identical to the ones destined for local showrooms in early 2023 – being used by the marketing department at Toyota Australia’s headquarters in Melbourne.
“It’s just a pre-release viewing,” the sales and marketing boss of Toyota Australia, Sean Hanley, told Drive.
“The audience at Bathurst are sports performance car people. We saw it as a good opportunity.”
The GR Corolla at Mount Panorama had been trucked from Melbourne and was parked alongside a Toyota GR Yaris, although plans for a more elaborate display were shelved because of the heavy rain and deep mud at Toyota’s site.
Mr Hanley would not discuss any further details about the GR Corolla, although Drive had a preview drive in the USA last month, and estimated the likely pricing starting at about $60,000, based on prices from the US.
“We haven’t finalised the model line-up yet,” was the only comment to Drive by a Toyota employee at Bathurst.
The display car was painted in Feverish Red, one of the GR Corolla’s signature colours, and made a sharp contrast to the white GR Yaris alongside it.
The Corolla on show was specified similarly to Japanese ‘RZ’ models, with the regular 18-inch (non-forged) wheels, Yokohama tyres, standard metal (not carbon-fibre) roof and low-rise rear spoiler, but a vented bonnet that’s not standard on US models.
Apart from the GR Corolla and Yaris, the Toyota focus at Bathurst was on the deciding events for its Toyota Gazoo Racing Australia 86 (TGRA86) racing championship.
Racing was marred by some nasty crashes during a downpour on Saturday afternoon, but the grand final ran smoothly in the lead-up to the Bathurst 1000 with Zach Bates taking the win.
But he was only the runner-up in the series, despite dominating 86 racing over the past two years, as the championship crown went to Lachlan Gibbons.
Toyota Australia has committed its support to the TGRA86 championship, a nursery formula in Australian motorsport, through to the end of 2026 including a changeover to the next-generation Toyota GR86.
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