Japanese car giant Toyota will make its debut in the Supercars Championship (formerly known as V8 Supercars) in 2026, with its Supra sports car joining the Ford Mustang and Chevrolet Camaro on the grid.
In a bombshell announcement, Australia’s best-selling carmaker confirmed it would be the third manufacturer in the Supercars Championship in two seasons’ time, ending a six-year run of solely Ford vs Holden and latterly Chevrolet.
It will do so with its Toyota Supra hero model, though the coupe will be powered by a 5.0-litre V8 rather than its BMW-sourced turbocharged 3.0-litre straight six-engine, due in part to the availability of existing architecture.
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Toyota last competed in the Supercars Championship in 1993, when it was then known as the Australian Touring Car Championship (ATCC), doing so through privateers running the Corolla Seca SX as a class car, unable to compete with the V8-powered Ford Falcon and Holden Commodore.
Now it’ll be Walkinshaw Andretti United (WAU) flying the Toyota flag, moving from Ford after just three seasons and a highly publicised departure from Holden/General Motors – its long-time partner since 1987.
The ‘Gen3’ Supercars regulations which came into effect in 2023 were designed to bring greater manufacturer interest, with a chassis best suited for coupes.
It’s understood WAU had been trying to get Toyota onboard for 2023 but was unable to do so, resulting in its current Ford racing partnership.
Walkinshaw Andretti United will move from the Ford Mustang to Toyota Supras in 2026
Toyota Australia vice president of sales and marketing, Sean Hanley, told media the brand had been looking at entering V8 Supercars in 2000 with the launch of its Avalon sedan, though the Ford vs Holden battle at the time was “too tribal”.
Now it’ll be the Supra competing for wins in Australia’s largest motorsport, with WAU taking the responsibility for homologating the car and its engine for the Supercars Championship – a task it’ll receive help with from the category, which will supply CAD data to Toyota.
However, Toyota expects WAU won’t be the only team running the Supra, aiming to field four cars in 2026 to give it the best chance of success.
While Toyota has only displayed rendering and a 40 per cent scale clay model of the Supra Supercar so far, it plans to unveil a full-size model of the racer at the Bathurst 1000 next month.
According to Mr Hanley, it not only leans on the design of the Supra production car but also the FT1 concept which inspired the fifth-generation model.
Under the bonnet of the Supra will be a 5.0-litre V8 engine, known by its internal code as 2UR-GSE. This engine has not only powered the Lexus IS F, GS F and LC 500 road cars, but also Toyota’s Dakar-winning HiLux.
Its dual overhead camshaft design is similar to that of the 5.4-litre ‘Coyote’ V8 campaigned by Ford, rather than the pushrod 5.7-litre LS-based engine used by Chevrolet.
When asked whether Toyota had given any consideration to modifying the road-going Supra’s turbo straight-six for Supercars, Mr Hanley replied: “About three minutes. Actually, it wasn’t even one.”
Toyota has committed to a minimum timeline of five years.
“We’re not a short-term player, we’re not coming in just to be a PR stunt, we’re coming in because we want to do well – we know we’ve got to earn our right, we understand that,” said Mr Hanley.
“Winning’s not a right, winning is earned, and we think we’re with the very best team to do that, we’ve got the very best backing in our own organisation both globally and domestically.”
The Supercars Championship has been without more than two manufacturers since the end of 2019, when Kelly Racing stopped campaigning its Nissan Altimas which had been in service since 2013.
Before that, Erebus Motorsport raced the Mercedes-AMG E 63 from 2013 to 2015, and Garry Rogers Motorsport ran a pair of Volvo S60 Polestars between 2014 and 2016.
While each of these three manufacturers have now moved on, they all have something Toyota doesn’t – wins.
Since the first ATCC/Supercars race in 1960, Toyota hasn’t yet seen the chequered flag first, despite campaigning in Celicas, Corollas and Supras up until the early 1990s.
Now with the Supra and V8 power to match its rivals, it has the chance to change almost seven decades of history.
“Someone asked me the other day, ‘Can you win Supercars?’,” said Mr Hanley. “I said ‘Can a bream swim? Work it out!'”
“We’re not coming in to come second.”
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