Toyota has been cooking up a new two-door sports car with clear motorsport intentions for a few years now, with concepts and prototypes popping up. The so-called Toyota GT Concept (for now) showed up at this year’s Goodwood Festival of Speed in two parts: a GT race car alongside a road-going, still-camouflaged concept. Luckily for us, a quick camera operator managed to get a shot of the interior of the street car, giving us our first good peek at what should be the interior for the forthcoming Lexus LFR.
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Toyota
- Founded
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August 28, 1937
- Headquarters
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Aichi, Japan
- Owned By
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Publicly Traded
- Current CEO
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Koji Sato
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Lexus
- Founded
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1989
- Headquarters
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Nagoya, Japan
- Owned By
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Toyota Motor Corporation
- Current CEO
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Takashi Watanabe (President)
Caught On Camera At The Top Of The Hill
During the second day of the festival, after the two cars made a second run up the hill, the drivers posed for another interview with the livestream team. At the end of the interview, where the drivers revealed this was their first time getting to drive the street car, one of them straight up opened the door to show off the interior. The quick glimpse reveals a dual-tone treatment with bright red prominently featured on the lower dashboard, floors, and seating, topped by dark black elements like the steering wheel, upper dashboard, and infotainment screen.
We can also see carbon bucket seats, a weird dark scoop in the center armrest that could be a wireless phone charging pad, or just a hand rest for the upper console controls, which features what looks to be a large centralized switch that could be the drive mode selection. Above that is a metal-looking panel with switch-like buttons (seven, if you count), which likely control the screen features and climate.
It also looks like there could be a digital rear view mirror, and a large display in the center of the dash looks like the 14-inch screen from the Tacoma. Steering wheel details remain murky based on the look we have for now, but it’s a chunky deal with a thick ring.
Related
LISTEN: What do you think is hiding under the hood of Toyota’s new supercar?
The car you see below is still a concept that made its European debut at the Goodwood Festival of Speed as the Toyota GT. It’s currently sitting on a stand right next to its racing-spec brother, and they are doing runs up the hill. It’s widely believed that this so-called Toyota will actually debut as the Lexus LFR, a successor to the beloved LFA. We inspected the car closely and noted carbon ceramic brakes, massive air extraction vents, and 20-inch wheels wrapped in Michelin Pilot Sport Cup 2 tires. It’s also telling that there isn’t a single Toyota or Lexus logo on the car, which is why we think it will debut as a Lexus.
The biggest question of all is what’s hiding under the hood. Click here to watch and listen as the two cars go up the hill. We want to know what you think it will use for power. It’s obviously a V8 engine, but we can’t hear the telltale signs of a turbocharger or supercharger. To our ears, it sounds a lot like the mid-engine Toyota Hilux Dakar Rally car, which used
Another detail to notice is the matching camouflage race suits the drivers are wearing, which lines up with the car’s appearance. There’s a hook-shaped motif, like a sharp boomerang, that makes up the pattern. This could be some style or detail element on the final car, or some interpretation of its final design language. It could also show up as some sort of interior pattern or motif.
An Official Debut Should Be Coming Soon
As for further details on these new cars, Toyota and its drivers have remained very tight-lipped. The festival stream commentators suggested the vehicles likely have V8 powertrains as they did their runs up the hill, and it indeed sounds that way. Rear-wheel drive is pretty much guaranteed, and there could be some sort of electrification as well, but we’ll have to wait and find out.
The drivers reported that the cars were excellent on the drives (naturally) and to be fair, nothing went wrong. The cars have been tested at major tracks around the globe, with the car recently spotted on the German Nürburgring and an LFR prototype on the ground in the western US.
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