Toyota GR SUVs are coming!

Peruse the growing line-up of Toyota GR models, which currently includes the GR Yaris, GR Corolla, GR Supra and GR86 and you’ll notice a key omission: there is no performance SUV.

Given GR’s mission is to make fun cars that “make car guys smile” you could argue the lack of a heavier, higher-riding SUV makes total sense, yet that doesn’t mean a GR SUV isn’t on the radar for Australia’s most popular brand.

Tomoya Takahashi is GR’s company president and while on a recent visit to Australia, he told Wheels that it’s logical to add an SUV to the GR model range in the future.

4

GAZOO Racing Company President Tomoya Takahashi

“To expand the GR brand, maybe those [SUVs] are needed as well,” he said. “Some people can only use SUVs because they have family issues, or a number of challenges.”

The issues Takahashi is alluding to are the need to seat multiple passengers in comfort and to haul things about in a decent-sized boot, which are abilities the current, driver-focused GR model range lacks.

Bolstering the line-up with a GR SUV would make sense from a sales perspective, too. SUVs continue to be hugely popular worldwide and a GR version of the Corolla Cross, Yaris Cross, RAV4 or C-HR would surely become the go-fast division’s best-seller.

4

2024 Toyota C-HR GR Sport

“At GR company we only have small resources to hit our goal so you have to prioritise,” added Takahashi. “But in my individual point of view, we need GR SUV cars. In future.”

Toyota currently sells GR Sport versions of the C-HR, Yaris Cross and LandCruiser, however these models mostly bring styling and equipment upgrades rather than mechanical performance enhancements.

So which SUV is likely to cop the full-bore GR treatment? A GR RAV4 would make sense given it is Toyota’s most popular SUV, however a C-HR or Yaris Cross could theoretically be developed at a lower cost.

4

2025 Toyota RAV4 GR Sport, imagined by Theottle | © Wheels Media

Given their small size and lower weight, those models could more readily adopt the 1.6-litre three-cylinder turbo and all-wheel-drive drivetrain already used by other GR models.

But while Takahashi’s insistence that a GR SUV will come “in the future” suggests it’s still someway off, one thing we can say with some certainty is that it won’t be powered solely by electricity.

“We want to use internal combustion engines as as much as possible,” said Takahashi. “In the future maybe there is some time the engine will be banned or not the engine is banned but that carbon is banned. By using a hybrid technology we can reduce carbon emissions or using the carbon neutral fuels. So for me, Toyota is saying ICE is not bad. The enemy is carbon.”