Team Toyota Gb Develops Gt86 Race Car

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Following Toyota's return to Le Mans earlier this year, Team Toyota GB, which competed in the British Touring Car and British Rally Championships in the 1980s and 1990s, has been resurrected and will build a race version of the GT86 sports car.

The car is being developed by GPRM in Buckinghamshire, which also prepares Toyota's BTCC Avensis, and will make its debut in September's Britcar 24 Hour race at Silverstone.

The racing version of the GT86 will use the same 197bhp flat-four, 2.0-litre engine as the road-going version, as well as its rear-wheel-drive chassis. Gary Blackham of GPRM, said: "The new Toyota has all the makings of a great production class racer. We are concentrating our efforts on stripping back the chassis, lightening and strengthening it and of course equipping it with a roll cage and all the other safety gear required, as well as quick-refuelling equipment. Other than that, the GT86 will remain essentially in road car form."

The car will run in the Production Class at Silverstone, with the driver line-up due to be announced in the coming weeks. It will wear the same livery as the Toyota AE86 that competed in the BTTC in the mid-1980s.