The Toyota V8 Supercar that Never Was

The Toyota GR Supra Supercars contender took to the track at Mount Panorama for the first time on Friday ahead of the 2025 running of the Bathurst 1000. 

Its entry into Australia’s premier touring car championship next year makes it the first new manufacturer – save for GM’s switch from Holden to Chevrolet  – to enter Supercars since the Nissan Altima left the series at the end of 2019. 

However, the Supra was not the first car Toyota looked at for an entry into the series. 

When the brand’s Supercars program was announced in September 2024, Vice President of Sales & Marketing at Toyota Motor Corporation Australia, Sean Hanley, told members of the press that the Toyota Avalon large sedan was initially considered for an entry in the early 2000s. 

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The Toyota Avalon was launched in Australia in June 2000 as a rival to the Holden Commodore and Ford Falcon. 

It was powered by a 3.0-litre V6 – producing 145kW and 284Nm – paired with a four-speed automatic transmission, sending power to the front wheels. 

“We were entering the six-cylinder market, and it was very dominated at that time, remember you’re going back over 20 years, by Ford and Holden, which were both very good brands and strong brands in Australia,” said Hanley at the official launch of the GR Supra Supercar in September this year. 

“Of course, we were looking at a six-cylinder passenger vehicle. How do we make a stance? Because at the time Toyota was recognised, of course, for its off-road capability, LandCruisers, etc, and our sedans and hatches were largely four-cylinder front-wheel drive.” 

V8 Supercars could’ve served as a platform to make that stance, and by the early 2000s, Toyota were no strangers to Australian touring car racing. 

The brand’s presence in the sport stretches back as early as 1965, when three Toyota Coronas contested the Armstrong 500, the race that would later evolve into the Bathurst 1000. 

The first class victory for the brand on the Mountain came at the 1968 Hardie-Ferodo 500, with Bruce Hindhaugh and Bob Morris behind the wheel of a Toyota Corolla. 

Toyota’s most notable success came with the Corolla’s eight-year streak of class wins from 1985 to 1992 at the Bathurst 1000. 

However, an entry into Supercars was ruled out due to the sport’s tribalist nature at the time. Despite Toyota’s previous class wins at the Bathurst 1000, a victory in the V8 Supercars era could’ve been detrimental to the brand, according to Hanley. 

“...even if we entered the [Bathurst 1000] and by some chance we won the race, people would resent Toyota. So we saw it as being detrimental to the brand, not helpful,” said Hanley. 

“In terms of the product, we always knew that we had a V8 engine that we could adapt, and we always knew that we could make it work if we wanted to. That wasn't the determining factor.” 

“It was more about the tribalism, and you might recall it was this theory that you win on Sunday, buy on Monday, which was kind of a powerful statement back in the day. I don't subscribe to [the idea] that's the way it works today, but back then it certainly did. Such was the tribalism.” 

The sales run of the Toyota Avalon came to an end in 2006 with just under 44,000 examples sold in Australia, a fraction of the sales recorded by the Ford Falcon and Holden Commodore. 

New manufacturers wouldn’t join the Supercars grid until 2013, with the arrival of the Nissan Altima and the Mercedes E63 AMG. Volvo entered the following year with the S60. 

However, by the end of the 2019 season, all three had withdrawn from the series. 

In 2026, six GR Supras will feature on the Supercars grid, run by Walkinshaw Andretti United and Brad Jones Racing.