THE Toyota Gazoo Racing (GR) festival which was introduced in 2017, has become one of the popular local events not only for motorsports fans but also for all in the family.
Its main draw – the Vios Challenge one-make race – has opened the door of affordable entry into the local motorsports scene and has attracted celebrity drivers, and professional and budding racers.
UMW Toyota Motor president Ravindran K said that aside from giving the Toyota brand a sporty boost, the event had also created awareness of the exciting feel as well as the robust and dependable build of Toyota vehicles.
“Basically when we started Gazoo Racing at that time, we wanted to change the thinking among people that Toyota cars were for the matured,” he said at the sidelines of the Season 5’s finale of the Toyota Gazoo Racing festival and Vios Challenge racing series at Sepang International Circuit recently.
He said the company wanted to endear youths to its vehicle line-up.
“We wanted to engage the youths and we had a total shift from 2017 to now.
“We want people to feel that our cars can run not only on normal roads but also in a race,” he said, adding that even if Toyota cars had sporty performance, they were still comfortable for daily drives.
Ravindran said the event also gave the opportunity to young local engineers to tinker with race cars and improve their performance and dynamics.
“We have a small R&D section where we want our young engineers to localise the ‘feel’ of the car so we can give ideas to (Toyota operations in) Japan and Thailand,” he said.
“I think Gazoo Racing is the right platform for people to see where we are moving to and also as a platform for young engineers to join us and build better cars for the future,” he said.
Vios GR-S.
Among the fruits of the labour is the Vios GR-S, which is the sportiest variant of the UMW Toyota Motor’s best-selling family-oriented Vios line-up.
Drawing experience from the Vios Challenge race cars, the Vios GR-S was locally developed to deliver higher levels of performance and handling compared with the regular Vios.
This was achieved while maintaining ride comfort and staying within the affordability of typical compact sedan buyers.
“We want to tell the market that Toyota products come with quality and reliability, and you will not make a mistake by buying Toyota,” he said.
Ravindran also said that the GR branding has taken off locally with the introduction of the GR Supra, GR Yaris, and GR Garage.
GR Garage is a shop-in-shop concept where selected authorised Toyota dealers would sell GR products such as high-performance GR cars, and exclusive GR accessories and merchandise.
Apart from the Vios GR-S, Ravindran said UMW Toyota Motor would be creating the GR variants of the Hilux and Corolla as well.
“We want to create the image of sportiness but they are not weekend cars. Even on normal days, you can drive it and enjoy it. Exciting and fun,” he said.
“I think it is also good for young people to invest in our cars as they have good resale value,” he said.
Ravindran also said the UMW Toyota Motor would introduce an electric vehicle (EV) under the Toyota brand this year and one under the Lexus brand next year.
“You can see many foreign brands introducing EVs in Malaysia.
“We are slightly slow (in the rollout) but we already have the technology,” he said, adding that the company was taking the introduction of the EV line-up introduction its stride to build customer confidence and avoid mistakes.
Keyword: Toyota Gazoo Racing: Taking on the challenge