It’s at least not cancelled. Or is it?
It isn’t easy to develop a road-legal version for an electrified racecar. Mercedes-AMG can tell you all about the challenges it faces in getting the One on the roads. The concept was unveiled in September 2017, but it won’t be available for production until 2022. Toyota is having a similar story with its Super Sport concept, which was launched in September 2017, but won’t be ready for production until 2022.
According to a report published in August, the demise of the road-legal vehicle was being discussed. Racer magazine quoted undisclosed Japanese sources as describing a prototype that crashed during a Fuji Speedway test. The fiery incident led to Toyota apparently removing the GR Super Sport road car and keeping the race car version. The Drive tried to get in touch with Toyota Motorsports Communications to verify or deny the report. However, Sam Mahoney, a representative of Toyota Motorsports Communications was vague.
What can we draw from this statement? The hypercar for public roads appears to be in good shape. It has not been approved for production, so its existence is in doubt. Le Mans Hypercar rules do not require a road car, which makes production less likely. Peugeot has already ruled the possibility of a street version 9X8.
To refresh your memory, a Toyota Australia spokesperson Orlando Rodriguez stated that a possible production version of the hypercar would be . This would have the same performance and asking price. In March 2018, the Japanese automaker launched an online questionnaire to potential GR Super Sport purchasers. It asked them, among other things, whether they have a 2000GT or a Lexus LFA. It is still running, which could indicate that Toyota isn’t giving up on this ambitious project.
According to the most recent reports, the hypercar could produce over 1,000 horsepower from a hybrid configuration that revolves around a V6 engine. We are keeping our fingers crossed that it isn’t another GT-One, of which only two were built in the late 1990s but never sold to the public.