Toyota has unveiled its liveries for the two cars it will enter in this year’s 24 Hours of Le Mans. As it happens, 2025 marks Toyota’s 40th anniversary of Le Mans competition, which started with the Toyota 85C in 1985. To mark the milestone, Toyota is applying a livery from one of its most famous and beloved racers to one of this year’s entrants.
Fans of endurance racing and Gran Turismo will recognize the red and white livery immediately. It’s none other than that of the Toyota TS020, also known as the GT-One. One of the meanest looking prototype racers of all time, the GT-One was campaigned for two years only, 1998-99.
The No.7 Toyota GR010 Hybrid driven by Mike Conway, Kamui Kobayashi, and Nyck de Vries will pay homage to the GT-One. In contrast, its sister car driven by Sébastien Buemi, Brendon Hartley, and Ryo Hirakawa, will wear Toyota Gazoo Racing’s modern livery. The No.8 GR010 Hybrid is stark black with bits of red and white.
Interestingly, Toyota chose the 1998 livery over the 1999 livery. In 1998 the No.27 GT-One driven by Japan Ukyo Katayama and Ralf Kelleners placed 4th, missing the podium by 0.374 seconds. However, in 1999 the No.3 GT-One driven by Katayama, Keiichi Tsuchiya, and Toshio Suzuki was famously on track to win it all before a tragically unfortunate tire blowout knocked it down to second place in the final hours of the race. It would be 19 years before Toyota nabbed the championship, and not without similarly heartbreaking near-misses.
Perhaps Toyota is saving the 1999 livery for next year, but there’s a lot to choose from. Toyota has entered 61 cars in 26 races at Circuit de La Sarthe, resulting in five wins, 18 podiums and eight pole positions. How about a nice Minolta graphic from the 89C, the NipponDenso colors from the A80 Supra that Toyota ran in 1996, or the Casio scheme from the 1992 TS010? Possibilities abound. The 93rd running for the 24 Hours of Le Mans 24 will be held on June 14-15, 2025.
… I think because with the addition of current situations that others have faced, such as Trump’s Oval Office return (plus tarrifs), domination of South Korea in every field (entertainment, automotive, technology etc.), a repeat of a recession like what happened in 2008 – two years before Toyota’s shock product recalls, among others, therefore as foreign goods – especially of European and Japanese origins from Tokyo to Rennes (in Britanny, France) and Reykjavik thus from ninja and samurai to Onion Johnny (French / Breton farmers who end up traveling mostly to UK), Iberia’s bullfighters, Venice’s gondola guys and Vikings – in America / Trump America may have faced a future of being marginalized especially when DJT would re-elect himself three years later (2028) and as with the Cannes film festival (another event held in France in the same period as the Le Mans 24h) almost coming this month – which may even see the last of US-developed films being showcased there (means its no Cannes do for American projects if Trump continues to sit in the White House)…
… Probably, as also given with the irrelevance of long-standing motorsports series such as WEC (World Endurance Championship) and WRC (World Rally Championship) – examples of racing events where Toyota currently competes – especially after European (particularly but not German) marques have already pulled from each of these automotive racing series (WRC for Lancia / Fiat in 1992, Renault in 1999, Peugeot in 2006 and Citroen in 2019) means for one that has not been hailing from Europe while it may refuse to pull the plug from each of the aforementioned racing series (also has already bloated sales and profits) like Toyota would even like to recommend (Toyota) its race cars in each motorsports events to wear the liveries of racing vehicles coming from Stellantis (formerly PSA and FCA) to Renault Group and vice versa… (Like how in Capcom’s Street Fighter universe where Guile wears Charlie’s clothes, Bandai Namco’s Tekken lore would have Julia dress up as Lili, Eliza and Kunimitsu I-II and The Witcher’s Ciri cosplaying as Nier Automata’s YoRHa 2B…)
… So, in that case, I even saw a GR Yaris cosplayed a Martini Racing-clad Lancia Delta before just as I later realized that the previous and current generations of Yaris have similar aesthetics with the Peugeot 206, 207 and (first-generation only) 208 just as the current Yaris’ stylings also possesses similarities with the first-generation Citroen C3 (which is ran on Peugeot technology until the current model C3 and C4), not due to the fact that the Yaris has been made in Peugeot’s birth country (France) since it was launched in 1999, but also since Toyota and each Japanese carmakers (even outside Europe) has been well-criticized for being boring and other things (along with the fact that anyhting Japanese are virtually absent in South Korea) then I think the liveries used by Peugeot’s former WRC team in the 206 World Rally car from 1999 to 2003 would have been a good fit in the current GR Yaris WRC… (Likewise, Stellantis’ predecessor PSA Peugeot Citroen used the GR name as trim level for Peugeots until the 1990s when the 205 was replaced with the said 206…)
sigh
Kinda wish they had done special liveries for both cars, this GT-One homage, and also the 85C. I know the 85C didn’t set the world on fire, but it’s a beautiful car, plus it has the Nakajima family tie-in.
Being mostly white, it might help a little with temperatures a little (like the GR WRC team switched to silver livery for the summer).
The 1998 GT-One paint brush livery looks a lot better on the original than the current GR010 because the bodywork on the new car is too broken up. On the new car it just looks like white splashes. It still looks better than the black livery. Maybe the 1999 GT-One livery would work better, even though it was unbranded Marlboro livery.