What Car Do Racers Drive In The Toyota GR Cup?

If you've been paying attention to Toyota's lineup of vehicles over the last few years, you've probably seen the GR name popping up on its performance models lately — cars like the GR Corolla, the GR Supra, and the GR86. If you're wondering, GR stands for Gazoo Racing, a dedicated performance brand for several of Toyota's vehicles. The GR emblem is pretty well respected thanks to the quality and the success of the Supra, Corolla, and 86, but Toyota is pushing things even further.

More than just a naming convention for performance vehicles, Toyota wants the GR brand to be synonymous with Toyota Racing. Recently, Toyota announced that its North American racing efforts will be rebranded, changing the official name from Toyota Racing to Toyota Gazoo Racing North America. And in the last few years, Toyota has also introduced the GR Cup, a racing series that's meant to be "competitive and affordable" where racers drive modified Toyota GR86s in a single-make race series at various racetracks around America. The idea with Toyota GR Cup, as with any spec series, is to put racers in the same cars on an equal playing field, to see who the best driver is. Naturally, that means that all GR Cup cars are built to the same spec so that no driver has a performance advantage. 

Before it becomes a race car, the Toyota GR86 begins its life as a practical, affordable 2+2 coupe that's already fun to drive. For its race transformation, though, the GR Cup car treatment takes what's already good and turns it into a dedicated track machine. Like any race car, the GR's interior is gutted, then a roll cage, and an OMP racing seat is added. A large 22-gallon fuel cell replaces the stock 13.2-gallon tank, and has a special suspension with JRI adjustable coilovers and a MacPherson front strut.

For power, it uses the same 2.4-liter naturally-aspirated four-cylinder engine as the standard car, putting out 228 horsepower and 184 lb-ft of torque. Bosch engine management and a Borla exhaust are added, as is a SADEV six-speed sequential transmission. For stopping power, the GR gets Alcon brakes with four-piston calipers up front and two-piston calipers in the rear. Tires are 245/620 Continental slicks wrapped around Rotiform 18-inch forged alloy wheels. A carbon fiber rear wing, a TGRNA-designed front splitter and a number of 3D-printed exterior components are added too. After Toyota is done adding all that gear, the price of a standard GR86 is left in the dust.

A base 2025 Toyota GR86 is generally considered affordable — at least amongst run-of-the-mill sports cars. Base models with a manual transmission start as low as $29,950 (plus $1,135 destination fee) and even the special-edition Trueno Edition isn't much more – checking in at $35,270 (plus destination) with a manual. The Cup car is considerably more expensive.

According to a 2023 report from NBC Sports, the GR Cup car itself checks in at $125,000 with a season entry fee of $32,000 on top. That's nearly $160,000 before the cost of things like traveling to the races and transporting the car itself. Running the car all around the country and competing could cost as much as $300,000 for a full season. Thankfully, prize money is available for drivers that perform well. The total purse for the year-long series is $1 million, with first through eighth place finishers earning prize money each race, and the season champ takes home $50,000.