For obvious reasons, manufacturers will never show off any of their vehicles with damage. Unless it’s a crash test exhibition, blemishes big or small are immediately dealt with before the car can make a public appearance.
But things are a little different for Akio Toyoda. During the Toyota Technical Center Shimoyama inauguration, the kin of the world’s largest automaker proudly displayed a smashed up GR Yaris bearing his name. What for, you ask?
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First, a background. The Toyota Technical Center Shimoyama is the company’s largest and most extensive proving ground to date. Aside from practically replicating parts of the Nürburgring, everything in that facility is made to push Toyota vehicles to the limit and their breaking point. And that’s exactly what Morizo (Toyoda’s pseudonym) did with this particular GR Yaris, perhaps a little too literally.
Before its opening, Morizo did a few runs in the center with a rally-prepped GR Yaris. In one of the dirt sections, he hit a mound fast enough to send the car on two wheels and eventually slide on its roof. It wasn’t a massive crash or anything, but we’re sure some board members had their heart rates go a little faster when their heard their chairman figured in an accident. And in case anyone’s still asking, Morizo and his co-driver Norihiko Katsuta were unhurt in the accident.
Still, Morizo had a good laugh about it and showed the car for good reason. The folks at the test center wanted to prove a point that they test the cars so hard that to a point that their chairman flips the cars over. Comedy aside, the man isn’t afraid to point out his own mistakes. It also goes to show how seriously Toyota takes preproduction testing to ensure the best reliability out of its products as much as possible.
In other Toyota GR-related news, the company would like to add an SUV in its lineup. Whether it’s a performance crossover or high-speed off-roader is still up to debate, but the in-house performance division’s intentions are clear. That said, it appears that the Lexus LBX will get a hot version soon as previously shown by the one-off Morizo RR concept earlier this year.
