Toyota GT One Road Car - Tucked away deep underneath the wind tunnels at Toyota Motorsport GmbH facilities in Cologne is a living, fire-breathing monster from a golden era of endurance racing. Say hello to the menacing Toyota GT-One. 
Underneath the large and imposing wind-tunnel structures at TMG Europe lies a collection of Toyota’s finest motorsport achievements from the heyday of Toyota Team Europe (TTE), right back to modern era F1 and Endurance race cars. But we’ll speak more about those another time.Nestled in the corner of the collection was this sleek bright red beast. For fans of the older “Gran Turisimo” games, you will immediately recognise it as the road version of the iconic Toyota TS020 otherwise known as the “GT-One”.
Back in 1997-1998 when this car was developed, GT1 rules stipulated that you had to build a homologated, road legal version of the car you wish to race in GT1. This gave rise to the birth of the Porsche 911 GT1, Mercedes CLK GTR and the Toyota GT-One. Although Porsche and Mercedes manufactured a handful of homologated road cars for super wealthy customers, Toyota were only focused on the Le Mans campaigns of ’98 and ’99 and converted one race car to “road legal” spec (read the phrase “road legal in it’s lightest terms here!) to comply with regulations. And so “K-LM-1998” was born. 
The team which designed and built the car (lead by Andre de Cortanze) managed to complete the project within one year. The use of CAD design technology greatly helped in the short timelines, and helped to create one of the most aerodynamically advanced race cars of its time. The one thing I had to keep reminding myself during this shoot is that it’s a ROAD car and NOT a race car! 
When you start to look at the car in detail, it’s incredible to think that the car was designed entirely on CAD and not sketched out using more traditional means. It’s one of the few cars that I have seen where it looks like it is moving even when at a standstill. It’s a great example of form following function, with the lack of livery on the car even helping to see the details of the cars lines! 
The road car also shared the same engine as it’s racing brethren, an evolution of the 3.6L turbo V8 which it ran in the Group C campaigns of the early 90’s. The engine was strong enough to keep the car as a serious contender amongst the other GT1 contenders at Le Mans that year. The only tweaks to the “Road version” were catalytic converters, changes to the aerodynamic settings of the rear wing, a raised ride height and a smaller fuel tank! 
Parked nearby are some of the competition cars of the ’98 and ’99 campaigns. Both campaigns were a bittersweet affair for Toyota. In 1998, the #28 car of Martin Brundle, Emmanuel Collard and Eric Hélary qualified 2nd and held that position until the last hour when they agonisingly suffered transmission failure. This was after having posted the fastest laps and speeds of the whole field. The remaining Toyota finished 9th.In 1999, with a stronger package, the team demolished the opposition in qualifying and took the first three places on the grid. However, the unpredictable nature of Le Mans struck again and the top two cars crashed out in separate accidents. The remaining Toyota fighting back to take 2nd place on the podium.
The end of the 1999 season led to the end of the iconic GT1 Formula in endurance racing. In my opinion, one of the true golden eras in endurance racing. Each of the teams went their separate ways focusing on other motorsports such as Rally, F1 and GT racing.Looking at this car it is crazy to think it is 16 years old already. I could have easily spend the whole day taking in it’s purposeful lines and domineering presence. But there were other hidden gems in the Toyota vaults that I had to see. Some of which I will share with you soon…
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