The Toyota GT-One Is The Fastest Road-Legal Toyota Ever Made — But You're Never Going To Own One

Over the years, Toyota has steadily forged a reputation as a manufacturer of reliable, mass-market vehicles. However, beneath this layer of practicality and common sense lies a motorsports division that represents the carmaker's wild side. It is this unit that is behind one of Toyota's most extreme creations.

Dubbed the Toyota GT-One, this vehicle was born from the crucible of endurance racing, specifically the 24 Hours of Le Mans. In late 1996, Toyota flagged off a special project with the sole aim of securing outright victory at the 24 Hours of Le Mans. The Toyota GT-One, codenamed the TS020, was the first race car built at the Cologne headquarters of what is now Toyota Gazoo Racing Europe.

To satisfy the FIA GT1 homologation requirements at the time, Toyota also produced a road-legal variant of the GT-One race cars. The GT-One was a masterpiece of aerodynamic engineering, with a focus on reducing drag to an absolute minimum. Its low-slung, carbon fiber shell was built around a 3.6-liter twin-turbocharged V8 that made around 600 hp. It was enough grunt to propel the GT-One to an estimated top speed of 231 mph. This technically makes the GT-One the fastest road-legal car ever produced by Toyota.

In 1998, only one road car was required to meet homologation requirements for endurance race cars. This was a significant departure from the usual rule, which mandated a minimum production of 25 road cars in the years preceding and following 1998. It was a short window exploited by Toyota, as it built only two road-going variants of the GT-One. One is displayed at the Toyota Gazoo Racing Motorsport Museum in Germany, while the other sits at another Toyota museum in Japan.

The road-going units of the Toyota GT-One were built from spare parts taken from the race car variant. The GT-One road car weighed around 2,425 lbs, about 400 lbs more than the race cars.

Toyota only added the bare essentials needed to homologate the GT-One. The rear wing was set lower, while the ride height of the road car was raised, supposedly to allow the vehicle to fare better on public roads. The fuel tank was smaller, and catalytic converters were fitted to ensure compliance with emissions regulations. The road car also featured items like turn signals and a license plate.

The small cabin space on the interior had been modified to fit a passenger sports bucket seat instead of the single-seater configuration of the race car. This meant that, no, the GT-One was not a wacky street legal one-seater. The seats, dashboard, headliner, and door panels were finished in brown alcantara, while the steering wheel was wrapped in brown leather. There was even a carpet on the floor, color-coded to match the car's red exterior paintwork.

The GT-One road car exists today because of Toyota's aspirations of conquering the 24 Hours of Le Mans. The carmaker entered three GT-One race car variants in the '98 and '99 editions of the iconic race. In both years, Toyota came agonizingly close to achieving its dream.

In 1998, the No. 29 Toyota with Thierry Boutsen, Geoff Lees, and Ralf Kelleners on the driver team was forced to retire from the race lead due to a gearbox failure just 90 minutes before the end of the race. The following year, the No. 3 GT-One was at the head of the pack when a tire puncture, one hour from the end, relegated them to an overall second-placed finish. Toyota subsequently quit Le Mans and would not return until 2012.

The GT-One might have fallen short of its ultimate goal, but its exploits provided a strong foundation that fueled Toyota's continued pursuit of Le Mans glory, with the carmaker finally securing its first overall Le Mans win in 2018 with the TS050 HYBRID.