Toyota is building a Motorsports Village at Fuji Speedway

Toyota, which owns Fuji Speedway, is planning to turn the facility into a world-class motorsports destination. It has announced plans to a motorsports village that will include a luxury hotel, museum, and facilities for both racing teams and privateers to wrench on and develop their cars. 

Getting to Fuji Speedway has never been easy. It’s in the middle of nowhere and requires a slog through a sleepy hamlet to get there. Once you’re there, finding good accommodations and dining can be a challenge. However, with Toyota’s plan, that will soon change.

A new 430,000 square-foot, 120-room hotel will be constructed in partnership with Hyatt. It will be the first “Unbound Collection” hotel in Japan, for whatever that’s worth. It will also include other hotel-y things, like banquet halls, conference rooms, and a gym and pool.

If a luxury hotel room is too plebeian for you, the motorsports village will also have private cottages for “glamping,” with space to park your Lexus right out front, of course (top right).

Perhaps the most interesting aspect will be garages for professional racing teams to develop and build their race cars. Having facilities next door to a world-class circuit will hopefully prompt more domestic constructors to set up shop and provide a jolt to Japan’s motorsports industry.

Lastly, there’s the yet unnamed motorsports museum, which is said will house valuable historic cars that tell the story of Fuji Speedway. It will be managed by the Toyota Automobile Museum, and like the official hall in Nagoya, will display cars of all marques, not just Toyota.

There’s another well-timed project that will help goose turnout motorsports village. The Oyama Smart service area and interchange will open in 2021. The new exit will drop travelers on the Shin-Tomei Expressway right at the village, providing easy access (and hopefully giving some peace to the surrounding town that have had to deal with rumbling race cars and enclosed trailers for so many decades). The village and hotel is scheduled to open in 2022.