Order books for the Toyota GR86 race car have been opened to new competitors
The 2024 Toyota GR86 race car will be on sale from May 29 to new competitors ahead its debut in the 2024 Toyota Gazoo Racing Australia (TGRA) 86 Series.
Previously only on offer to those already competing in the 86 Series, Toyota is now offering the $89,990 turnkey package to anyone wishing to race in the category next season.
The race-spec Toyota GR86 was unveiled at the 2022 Bathurst TGRA 86 Series end-of-year dinner, where Neal Bates Motorsports’ (NBM) continuation as technical partner, developing and building the vehicles for the five-round series that will support the Repco Supercars Championship, was also confirmed.
The 2024 GR86 race car features a full roll-cage, race seat with six-point harness, motorsport spec steering wheel, ECU and instruments as well control wheels and tyres, and upgraded suspension, brakes, exhaust, oil cooler and clutch.
Based on the GR86 road car, the track version sees the 2.4-litre naturally-aspirated four-cylinder with a claimed 10 percent power and torque increase over the showroom version’s 174kW/250Nm – translating to 191kW/275Nm – while also 70kg lighter. Toyota’s claimed weight of the GT-spec road car with manual transmission is 1287kg.
That’s significantly more power than the previous model, which in its final guise as a road car used a 2.0-litre engine developing 152kW/212Nm, bumped to approximately 169kW/236Nm by NBM for the 86 Series.
The first to receive the 2024 race car was 2022 TGRA 86 Series Kaizen Award winner Jarrod Hughes who pushed the sharp and affordable race car through its paces at Sydney Motorsport Park.
“The Toyota 86 has been a fantastic car to race these past couple of years but the GR86 takes it to a whole new level,” said Hughes.
“With more power and torque and much sharper handling, it’s so much quicker through the corners and the feel and feedback you get just inspires greater confidence to push on harder.
“Neal and the crew at NBM have done an awesome job in turning what was a significantly improved road car into a real track weapon and I can’t wait to line up on the grid for the first race in 2024.”
Previously, competitors in the category had to add on an additional road-to-race package to their Toyota 86 car purchase, costing $27,100 from Neal Bates Motorsport. The retail price of the MY21 86 GT manual, its final model year, was $37,380 for a total of $64,480.
Toyota has previously confirmed its commitment to supporting the category until at least the end 2026, with 76 previous model race cars built for the category since its inception in 2016.
For 2023, a new second-tier Scholarship series was introduced, with Marcus La Delle winning the first race at the opening round at Sydney Motorsport Park in April, with Round 2 held at Winton Raceway earlier this month.
Round 1 of the 2023 Toyota Gazoo Racing Australia 86 Series begins in Townsville on July 7-9.
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