Toyota’s Gazoo Racing Have Turned The GR86 Into a Castrol-Coloured Stunner For SEMA 2024

Memories, preferably fond ones, are an important part of life. And if you’re anything like me, that also comes down to our passion and hobbies. I have tons of delightful memories regarding watches, and cars for that matter. I’ve been fortunate enough to spend quite some time in and around cars I can never afford, or could only dream of seeing on a race track with my own eyes. Many of those memories, especially the ones that pre-date the internet as we know it now, come from TV too. Toyota’s most recent SEMA build took me by surprise, as it transported me back to the early 1990s and the dominance of Toyota in the World Rally Championship. Why? Due to the fact the GR-86 they built is dressed in the famous Castrol Oil sponsorship colours!

Toyota & Castroil Oil

Rallying in the early 1990s was a thing of beauty. Multiple big-name (and money) manufacturers put road-car-derived rally cars on the road under Group A regulations. And while we often romanticise the Group B spec rally cars that came before it, Group A cars would prove to become just as exciting. Even today, looking at the cars and drivers from that era gives me goosebumps. We’re talking about the Lancia Delta Integrale 16V, the Toyota Celica GT-Four, the Subaru Impreza 555, the Mitsubishi Lancer EVO series, the Ford Escort RS Cosworth, all cars you and I could buy road-legal counterparts of in the showroom. And the men who piloted them weren’t exactly any less impressive; Carlos Sainz, Colin McRae, Juha Kankkunen, Didier Auriol, Richard Burns, Tommi Mäkinen and so on.

1993 Toyota Celica ST185 Turbo 4WD Group A Rally Car – Bonhams Cars

1993 Toyota Celica ST185 Turbo 4WD Group A Rally Car – Bonhams Cars

Toyota entered the World Rally Championship in 1972, and by the late 1980s, they were the team to beat. Especially the long-distance Africa rallies were Toyota’s domain for years. In 1991 it won the World Rally Driver’s Championships with the Celica GT-Four and in 1992, 1993 and 1994 it would do the same with the Celica Turbo 4WD. In terms of the company’s first manufacturer’s title, it had to wait a little longer as it won it for the first time in 1993 and then again in 1994. In 1999 it also managed to win the manufacturer’s title with the Corolla WRC. All of the factory rally cars were finished in the signature white, red and green of title-sponsor Castrol Oil, which would go down in history as one of the greatest liveries in motorsport! But there’s also a different side to Toyota’s rallying success, as in 1995 it got caught cheating (although admittedly how they did was extremely clever!) and banned from the championship for two years.

the sema-built Toyota GR86 Rally

So what did the Toyota geeks do for SEMA 2024? Simple, they took their GR86, a rear-wheel drive two-door sports coupe, gave it some mechanical upgrades  and dressed it in Castrol Oil colours. Can we leave it at that? Surely not, because this thing looks absolutely amazing, and has the bits and bobs to back up its good looks too!

The GR86 is Toyota’s interpretation of a sporty 2+2 coupe with an engine up front and drive to the rear. It’s considered the spiritual successor to the Celica, so it’s the perfect stepping stone for this GR86 Rally. Although the standard power output of the four-cylinder engine isn’t immense, it’s the combination of a relatively low weight, a manual transmission and rear-wheel drive that makes it such a great car. To help get it a little sideways when pushing, Toyota also fitted quite skinny tyres! Less contact patch means less grip which equals more fun! The car was introduced as the GT-86 in 2012 and is now in its second generation, but renamed to GR86 in 2020.

But SEMA is all bout going the extra mile, and pushing builds to new heights. And that’s exactly what Toyota’s Gazoo Racing (Gazoo Racing is Toyota’s M-division, to paint the picture) has done. Out goes the in-line four-pot, and in comes the drivetrain of the Toyota GR Corolla. That means it drops a cylinder as it goes from four to three, but gains quite a bit of power thanks to a turbocharger! Where the standard engine puts out roughly 230bhp, the GR86 Rally can rely on 300bhp instead! The drivetrain has also been upgraded to make it more suitable for rallying, such as a performance intercooler, an oil cooler, and reprogrammed engine management systems. The chassis was also re-engineered to go from rear-wheel to all-wheel drive, a result of swapping out the engine and drivetrain for the ones of the GR Corolla.

The modifications continue for the interior, which reveals a full roll cage and racing seats with 6-point racing harnesses. For the rest, it’s stripped down to the bare essentials, as one would expect in such a performance-oriented car. On the outside, it gets much-needed aero bits to keep it planted at high speeds, rally lights and new wheels and tyres. And then, as the cherry on top, the car’s body panels were painted in Halo White, the base colour of the famous Castrol Oil liveried rally cars from yesteryear. The red and green strikes throughout the car are directly inspired by the factory-built Celica rally cars in Toyota’s prime rallying days. A Celica GT-Four-inspired rear wing and red rubber mudguards are the finishing touches, completing the vintage rally look.

There’s no word on any of this making it into production at the moment, either as OEM upgrades available straight from the Toyota dealer, or a complete car at some point. It is, after all, a SEMA show car. Nevertheless, it’s an amazing-looking machine and a worthy tribute to the formidable legacy of the Toyota Celica GT-Four.

For more information, please visit Pressroom.Toyota.com.

Editorial Note: The information and images used for this article are sourced from and used with permission of Toyota Motor Corporation and Bonhams Cars unless stated otherwise.