'Whitegoods on wheels' no longer: How Toyota's boss made the world’s dullest car company cool again with models like the 2026 Toyota GR Corolla, GR Yaris, GR86 and Supra

Toyota is looking to accelerate into the future at full speed, leaving its ‘whitegoods on wheels’ image trailing in the dust.

And it all stems from the top down, with Toyota Chairman Akio Toyoda allowing his love of performance cars and motorsport to trickle down across its entire global operation - including Australia.

Toyota’s performance sub-brand, Gazoo Racing (GR), began life as Toyoda’s personal racing team. As he put his own mark on the company his grandfather founded during his time as Toyota President, GR became more and more prominent. Under his leadership Toyota revived its sports car program, launching the GR 86 and GR Supra, as well as launching the GR Yaris and GR Corolla hot hatches.

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Even after stepping down as president in 2023, Toyoda’s influence continues to be felt across the company. John Pappas, Toyota Australia’s Vice President National Sales, Marketing and Franchise Operations, said that Toyoda’s focus on ensuring the brand changed its image has impacted many local decisions.

“Akio’s philosophy actually is all about producing ever better cars,” Pappas said. “He actually talks about that. I'm pretty sure you can look him up talking about ever better cars some time ago when we went through this great phase.

“I look at it and I think that just inspires all of us globally to continue to build, particularly the GR brand in this case. To see how the GR brand's evolved from 2015 globally to where it is today, and the various products now that form within GR, like the GR 86 and the GR Supra, the GR Yaris, the GR Corolla. We love to see that expansion and what we've seen today, the trajectory we're on, we continue to build on the GR brand. So, absolutely, we want to continue to build on that.”

This includes the decision from Pappas’ predecessor in his role, Sean Hanley, greenlighting Toyota’s entry into the local Supercars racing series with a V8-powered GR Supra. Hanley admitted at the time that the company had been evaluating a racing entry for more than 20 years and the rise of GR made it the right time to finally commit.

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So much so that the highly-expensive racing program isn’t focused purely on increasing Toyota’s sales volume but rather to promote the GR brand both externally and internally to continue the path Toyoda set the brand on.

“ Look for us, actually, this is not about selling more cars,” Pappas said. “It's actually more about building the GR brand, building on the GR brand. And it's really more about what I said before about just learning. Learning to build better cars, better people.

“They're the two key things for us. Right? This is not about more sales and trying to sell more cars. It's about building better vehicles, better people, and building the GR brand.”