Exploring Toyota Motorsport GmbH’s Vault

If you’re ever given an opportunity to visit Toyota Motorsport GmbH (TMG), formerly Toyota Team Europe (TTE), you should definitely take a look at their private museum.

Behind some unsuspicious doors under the massive wind tunnels of the TMG factory lies possibly the most interesting collection of cars in all of Cologne, Germany.

Speedhunters_Georg_Lho_TMG_002

After entering the museum, you are greeted by TTE’s first rally cars to your left (more on those later), right across from many cups and plates that were achieved during several racing series. The first smiles rush over your face before you recognize that a Formula One car is hanging from the ceiling, right between the two massive tubes of the wind turbines. When lowering your view, you will see Toyota’s complete Formula One line-up, and a representative car for each Le Mans LMP1 generation.

Speedhunters_Georg_Lho_TMG_012

When I visited it was only a few weeks after the victory of the TS050 Hybrid at Le Mans, so the winning #8 car was still covered in the debris it picked up during the race.

Speedhunters_Georg_Lho_TMG_019

Moving past the TS040 and TS030 Hybrid race cars, the beautiful Toyota GT-One, or TS020, comes into sight. With its teardrop-shaped body and the massive but elegantly designed rear wing, this is arguably the most appealing endurance race car ever built.

Speedhunters_Georg_Lho_TMG_018

Taking a closer look at the car, you might wonder why there is a tennis ball on the windscreen and how this joke of a windscreen wiper would work during the lightest bit of rain. The answers to these oddities are quite simple: The tennis ball is connected to some protective foam that sits inside the roof scoop. The ball in sight would alarm the driver if the foam is still inside the roof scoop when the car is about to hit the track. The small windscreen wiper – that has zero function left – was attached to the car for qualifying, thus, every bit of wind resistance that was still left by the wiper could be reduced.

Speedhunters_Georg_Lho_TMG_021

The first of the two TS020s in line – which achieved second place at Le Mans in 1999 – had its engine cover removed and allowed a unique glance into the over-engineered 3.6-litre turbo V8. The pushrod suspension that sits right between other engine components and the chassis tubing that is simultaneously used as a wind channel for brake cooling are just two details of this impressive car.

Speedhunters_Georg_Lho_TMG_025

I could go on with the GT-One forever if it wasn’t for another car that impressed me even further. A car with an even bigger detached wing, two cylinders more, but six years older. I’m talking about the 1993 Toyota TS010, a Group C beast with a naturally aspirated 3.5-litre V10 producing an astonishing 640PS. Its brutal appearance in the red and white livery with gold wheels puts every modern endurance race car to shame. The detached double-decker wing has to be one of the most prominent aspects of any Toyota race car ever built to date.

Speedhunters_Georg_Lho_TMG_053

After finishing admiring the impressive endurance race cars, I made my way to the other side of the vault. Careful not to hit my head on any of the tubing of the industrial construct, Toyota Motorsport’s tuning cars come to sight. These were the cars I expected the least. Once presented at the Essen Motorshow in 2012, the Lexus TS650 is probably the most extreme version of the Lexus LS 460L it’s based upon.

Speedhunters_Georg_Lho_TMG_051

Even though the tuning cars are quite outstanding in a normal fashion, this is not an ordinary place, so another not-so-ordinary car caught my attention. And this time it was an electric one – the former record holder for electric race cars at the Nürburgring. In 2012 the TMG EV P002 set a fastest lap time of 7 minutes and 22.329 seconds.

Speedhunters_Georg_Lho_TMG_004

After exiting the World Endurance Championship (WEC), Toyota entered Formula One. A first test car was developed in 2001, equipped with a 2,998cc naturally aspirated V10. Famous drivers for Toyota were Jarno Trulli and Ralf Schumacher who joined the team in 2004 and 2005 respectively. In the later year, Toyota achieved its first podiums – second place finishes in Malaysia and Bahrain, and third placings in Spain, Hungary and China.

Speedhunters_Georg_Lho_TMG_006
Speedhunters_Georg_Lho_TMG_005

Toyota ended its final F1 season in 2009 with five podiums. The actual chassis from the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix was later signed by all TMG employees of that time.

Speedhunters_Georg_Lho_TMG_009

Toyota’s work with Formula One machines didn’t end immediately, and some were used as tire test cars for Pirelli. Not wearing a livery on their carbon skin and sitting next to some tanks under dim industrial lighting made these cars look even more out of this world.

Speedhunters_Georg_Lho_TMG_029

From Formula One we’re going back in time with a switch to rally. We start in 1972 with the Toyota Celica 1600GT; the 165PS strong TA22 is the first car TTE rallied in Group 2. Being based around the body of a series production car of the 1970s with its original dashboard still in place underlines the variety of racing cars Toyota Motorsport have built during their versatile racing history.

Speedhunters_Georg_Lho_TMG_037

While studying the data sheets of these lifted production-based machines, the drastic increase in power caught my eye. The 1979 Celica Liftback RA40, which drove in Group 4, delivered 230PS. Just four years later, the 1983 Celica TA64, Toyota’s take on the famous Group B, output an astonishing 370PS. Nicknamed the ‘African Queen’, the TA64 dominated the Safari and Ivory Coast rallies.

Speedhunters_Georg_Lho_TMG_039
Speedhunters_Georg_Lho_TMG_038

Even more powerful is the AW11 Toyota MR2-based 222D. This 1986 prototype, developed for the never implemented Group S, delivers up to 600PS. A regulation change axed the plans for this group, so the 222D never made an official appearance.

Speedhunters_Georg_Lho_TMG_040
Speedhunters_Georg_Lho_TMG_041

During the following Group A era, Toyota achieved its first overall victories. In 1990, Carlos Sainz won the driver’s world championship in the Celica ST165. The car presented in the TMG museum was the actual winning car Sainz drove at the 1991 Rally Corsica.

Speedhunters_Georg_Lho_TMG_043

But it was the Celica ST185 that Toyota achieved real success in rally sport with by winning the 1993 and 1994 manufacturer’s world championship. Before quitting WRC in 1999, Toyota secured its third manufacturers title with the Corolla WRC.

Speedhunters_Georg_Lho_TMG_048

After several years, Toyota decided to return and re-entered the championship in 2017 with the Yaris WRC. Since the engines of the rally cars are being developed at TMG, an engine prototype car from 2015 was present as well.

It’s one more car in a simply amazing collection of Toyota Motorsport machines.

Georg Lho
Instagram: georgblink
Facebook: RevolutionArts

More IAMTHESPEEDHUNTER posts

How To join the IATS program: We have always welcomed readers to contact us with examples of their work and believe that the best Speedhunter is always the person closest to the culture itself, right there on the street or local parking lot. If you think you have what it takes and would like to share your work with us then you should apply to become part of the IAMTHESPEEDHUNTER program. Read how to get involved here.

ADVERTISEMENT

Comments



Comments are closed.

14 comments

by Oldest
by Best by Newest by Oldest
1

Great Article ! I´ve been thinking about this place recently, so seeing all these photos is really a treat. Toyotas F1 cars still look incredible. I would´ve loved to see how competetive they would have been before pulling the plug. I heard the 2010 car looked really promising. Also, this might be a bit of a random question, but here it goes : Is it true that the TS040 had an off center steering wheel ?

2

Yes, the steering wheel was built on the left side instead of the center, so the instrument panel is entirely on the right side.

3

This is much better than Batcave!

4

AwesoME!! No ST205’s :). But seriously, where are the JGTC Supras??

5

Different company. All the racing is outsourced. Tommi Mäkinen Racing is doing the the Rally nowadays. TMG used to do Rally, F1 and now they do engines, wind tunnel work and WEC. JGTC Supras were built in Japan by TOM's i guess.

6

They still make the engines for the WRC

7

That Lexus TS650 I would love to see a story on it. Great article and it shows Toyota when it was going all out for racing.

8

Thank you for that article!

9

Bar rallying, the history of Toyota motorsport is an ode to the tenacity of human people. So many failures yet they remained committed to try.

10

When people say Toyota doesn't race anymore, they're wrong
Look at the GR Supra, GT86, Yaris GRMN, TRD, and their entire Gazoo Racing team like this vault
This is why Toyota is still the best to this day

11

Nice article... One thing, Toyota didn't actually stop rallying.. They were banned, after some clever cheating...

12

They were only banned for the 1996 season and returned in 1997. After 1999 they quit to pour money on F1

13

Incredible pictures, i wish they had more detailed ones of the corolla WRC, the last one Sainz drove a great car indeed.

14

They are missing one great looking car.
1977 Celica LB Turbo group 5!
If I'm not mistaking, it was build 2 of them. One is decaying in Japan (blue) and the other is in private garage rebuild in original red/white color in Germany

OFFICIAL SPEEDHUNTERS SUPPLIERS