Despite millions of TRD stickers gracing the flanks of everything from pickups to Priuses, nothing street-legal has ever had the gall to jettison the “Toyota” part of its name and go only by TRD. Well leave it up to the Aussies. I mean, if they can infiltrate Hollywood by concealing any trace of stretched vowels in their speech, surely they can strap a supercharger to a hotted-up Camry and squeeze 323 horses out of it. Well, they’ve gone and done just that, and the resulting hoon magnet is the TRD Aurion.
The nostalgic connection in all of this is that TRD Australia’s new website has an entire section devoted to Toyota’s 50th anniversary in motorsports with cool archival photos and a wicked video that includes, among other things, a first-gen Celica rally car in a sweeping powerslide through the snow, fiery explosions, an airborne Toyopet Crown. Fittingly, Toyota’s first venture into auto racing was in Oz’s Mobilgas Rally.
[Source: TRD Australia]
