Toyota GR GT To Debut On 5 December

We've been waiting for what feels like an eternity for the production version of Toyota's new flagship sports car and spiritual Lexus LFA successor, but finally, we have a date for its reveal.

Courtesy of a countdown on the Gazoo Racing website, titled 'The soul lives on', we'll be seeing the car on 5 December. A curious decision to show it beyond this month's Tokyo Motor Show, but at least it will be making a public appearance at January's Tokyo Auto Salon.

The racing version

The whole reason this car exists is that Toyota needs a new GT3 race car. GT3 – pretty much the most popular ruleset for sports car racing around the world – requires its cars to be based on road-going machines. Toyota’s current entry, the Lexus RC F GT3, has been racing since 2017 and is based on a road car that’s now 10 years old.

The thing is, there’s nothing within the Toyota or Lexus brands that would otherwise work as a platform. The Lexus LC is probably too big, and that’s just finished production, while the GR Supra is about to gracefully bow out with a GT4-inspired special edition (not that that's stopping Toyota from racing it in Supercars in Australia).

It appears, then, that Toyota has decided to follow the example set by the Maserati MC12 and second-generation Ford GT – producing a road car with the express purpose of having something to base the race car on.

We’ve already had a glimpse at what it might look like when Toyota showed off the GR GT3 concept in 2022. Since then, that concept’s popped up at a couple of events wearing Lexus badges.

The racing version has been spotted testing at tracks in Europe and Japan, and made a sort-of-official debut at the 2025 Goodwood Festival of Speed. Although it’s hard to get a handle on details, it looks broadly similar to the concept. Its exhaust note seems to all but confirm that it’ll use a twin-turbo V8, too.

The road version

GT3 rules mean a road-going version of this car is pretty much a done deal, and there have been various hints that it’s coming, too. In 2022, Toyota filed patent drawings in Europe of the GR GT3 concept, shorn of its enormous rear wing but still wearing some very aggressive aero lower down.

Prototypes have been spotted running all over the world for the last few years, and Toyota itself blew things wide open by running a road-going prototype alongside the race car at Goodwood in 2025.

Most rumours point to the road car getting some form of hybrid assistance alongside the twin-turbo V8, and effective confirmation came in September 2025, when a prototype was seen running around the Nürburgring during one of the track's 'Industry Pool' test days. In its rear windscreen was a little yellow sticker, something that electrified prototypes are required to display when running at the ’Ring. It'll likely only be the road car that gets an electrified powertrain, as hybrids aren't allowed in GT3 racing.

That Nürburgring test session also showed two versions of the car running, one with some extra aero addenda, suggesting there'll be a more track-focused derivative or option pack in addition to the standard car.

We got our first glance of an undisguised production car by way of a billboard at Fuji Speedway in October 2025.

Other concepts

Complicating matters a little are a couple of other concept cars shown off by Lexus in recent years. The first was the Lexus Electrified Sport Concept, one of 15 electric concept cars debuted by Toyota in one go back in 2021.

With its long-bonneted, cab-rearward proportions and slender lighting designs, it’s visually similar to the GR GT3 concept, although clearly a totally different design.

At the time, Toyota hinted that most of these concepts were previewing production cars, although only one has come to light in full EV form so far – the bZ4X crossover – and we know the company is hesitant about going all-in on electric power. It’s nevertheless spurred no shortage of rumours that a fully electric Lexus supercar is on the way.

Then, during Monterey Car Week 2025, Lexus debuted another, even less imaginatively-named show car, the Sport Concept. It has similar proportions again, and details that are closer to the LFR prototypes we've seen, although still clearly a different front end to the original GR GT3 concept. 

Lexus was coy about details such as powertrain, and only said that the Sport Concept is a glimpse at the luxury brand's future design language, but it's hard not to assume this is at least partially previewing a production LFR.

Will it be a Toyota or a Lexus?

This is another area where things get a bit murky. The original GR GT3 concept debuted as a Toyota, but then popped up at a couple of events wearing Lexus badges.

Lexus LFR had been widely touted as a name for the car, but Toyota has so far stayed largely silent on the matter. It did bring out the GR GT3 name again for an easter egg in its in-house anime series, though.

Furthermore, when a tiny glimpse of the car was unveiled in October 2025 on a billboard at Fuji Speedway, a Gazoo Racing emblem was visible, and Toyota so far hasn't used this badge on a road-going Lexus – only Toyota-badged cars. Toyoda and the other Toyota execs refer to it as the 'GR GT' in the livestream, too.

Our best guess is that in markets where Lexus has more luxury cachet, like North America, it could be badged as a Lexus LFR, whereas in Japan, where the Lexus brand has only been around since 2005, it'll be the Toyota GR GT. Where that leaves Europe, we're not sure.

When will we see the GR GT3?

As Akio Toyoda hinted, it looks like we'll finally get to see the GR GT/LFR by the end of 2025, while those attending the Tokyo Auto Salon in January 2026 will be the first to see it in person.

As for the race car, a 2026 competition debut has long been floated. The 24-hour races at Dubai and Daytona in January mark the traditional start of the GT racing calendar, but in the event the car's not ready, some have suggested that the Nürburgring 24 Hours in May could be the place where it steps into the spotlight.