After much uncertainty brought about by the fuel crisis, the Toyota Gazoo Racing Philippine Cup is back. There is now a renewed push for biofuels; the Vios and Tamaraw race cars are running on fuel formulated with special blends of coconut oil and traditional gasoline and diesel.
At the press conference in the midst of the race activities, Toyota Motor Philippines (TMP) president Masando Hashimoto emphasized the need for choices for the Filipino motorist, after the Iran War highlighted our dependence on traditional fossil fuel sources.
In the middle of the hour-long press conference, Top Gear Philippines publisher Carlo Chungunco asked if TMP is indeed bringing in the GR GT sports car. And for the first time, TMP publicly commented on the much-awaited sports touring model’s arrival. Senior vice-president Sherwin Chua-Lim said they have plans to bring it in. “As to when, we will just announce it when we have confirmed the exact schedule,” added TMP’s new head of marketing.
When asked how many TMP will bring in, Chua-Lim replied in a light tone, “you can use one hand to count.” With GR GT prices expected to reach $200,000, expect the Philippine price to not go below P12 million—and that’s before taxes. Understandably, we’re looking at a very small pool of potential customers here.
And there are talks that even if you happen to have a big bank account, you cannot wave a check at a Toyota dealer (they might not even be sold in Toyota dealers) and wait for your allotment.Toyota wants to sell the GR GT to drivers, not to speculators who will just flip it.
The GR GT is Toyota’s supreme expression of the Gazoo Racing brand, a bespoke chassis powered by a hybrid twin-turbo V8 making more than 600hp. It was revealed in December last year, and shown to the public for the first time at the 2026 Tokyo Auto Salon.
Hashimoto added that Toyota is having a moment at the ongoing Goodwood Festival of Speed in the UK. “We are showcasing the GR GT3 competition machine, the GR GT road machine, together with the electric LFA Concept. But it is still part of the R&D. They are still developing the specs for the road cars, and of course competition cars, too. We have to comply with so many regulations, homologations and emissions. It will come soon to the market. Globally it will be available, so the Philippines is also expecting the importation of the car from Japan,” said the TMP president.
So now we just wait and see when the GR GT will arrive in our market. We hope TMP keeps one unit for itself, the same way it got one Lexus LFA more than a decade ago. If that happens, expect to see a GR GT doing laps in a future GR Cup, maybe in a year or two—most likely the latter. We can’t wait.
