Almost Great - The Toyota GT-ONE
- Finlay Ringer
- Jan 14
- 7 min read
Updated: Jan 18
Toyota’s latest Le Mans challenger pays homage to a car which never actually won a race. What was the GT-One, and why would Toyota choose to reference it nearly 30 years later?
For the first time in five years, Toyota will compete with a new car in the World Endurance Championship in 2026. Rebranded as Toyota Racing, the five-time Le Mans winners recently revealed the TR010 – a heavily revised version of the GR010 which took two of those victories and four consecutive WEC championships – in a striking red and white livery.
The livery in question pays homage to one of Toyota’s most iconic prototype racers: the GT-One or TS020. Designed specifically to win Le Mans, it was one of the most advanced racers of its time, but it never quite achieved its goal.
Toyota’s Le Mans story begins in 1985, in the early years of Group C. Its early protypes used a derivation of the 4-cylinder turbocharged engine found in the roadgoing Toyota Celica; they were no match for established teams like Porsche and Jaguar, scoring a number of unimpressive results. Marred by reliability woes, the team switched to a 3.2-litre V8 in 1990, taking a career-best result of sixth at Le Mans.
Things began to look up for Toyota in 1992, when Group C rules allowed cars to use F1-inspired V10 engines. With a screaming 3.5-litre unit in its latest challenger, the TS010, Toyota entered the Sports Car World Championship, winning the opening round at Monza. At Le Mans, the TS010 would take Toyota’s first podium with a second place finish. It would also take the lap record for 1992 and 1993.
While results improved for Toyota, Group C as a category was coming to a close. As it was replaced by the LMP1 class for 1994, Toyota had to swiftly adapt the TS010 to meet the new regulations.
It worked, and its 94C-V would take another second place at Le Mans, leading for the majority of the race before losing position to the Porsche in the final hours.
For 1995 and 1996, Toyota would forgo the LMP1 class altogether, instead focussing on a single Supra LM from the GT500 category of the Japanese GT Championship. They were modified to run at Le Mans, but the single entries were severely outgunned by the vast amount of competition, particularly McLaren’s F1 GTRs.
By 1997, Toyota had revised its strategy to win Le Mans – it would enter a new car for the 1998 season, designed with the sole focus to win the endurance spectacle.
In a remarkably short timeframe, it would design and campaign the TS020, more affectionately known as the GT-One. Toyota Motorsport GmbH would take charge of the project, working in conjunction with legendary race car manufacturer Dallara. Toyota’s R&D centre and motorsports hub is based in Cologne, Germany, and still supports Toyota’s motorsports efforts today.
The project would be led by Andre de Cortanze. He was responsible for Peugeot’s 905, which took back-to-back Le Mans wins, including with a clean sweep of the podium in 1993.
The GT-One was entirely designed using CAD (Computer-Aided Design), which was rare for 1997, and the whole car took just nine months to complete. Moulded in Dallara’s wind tunnel, the sleek bodywork used minimal air vents and optimised air flow to reach a top speed of 220mph.
Built around a carbon and aluminium honeycomb monocoque, the GT-One used a heavily revised version of Toyota’s Group C V8. The 3.6-litre unit was built by Toyota engine guru Norbert Kreyer and Toyota Team Europe (TTE). It made upwards of 600bhp and 479lb-ft, all channelled through a six-speed sequential transmission that would be the car’s undoing on several occasions. Given that it weighed just 900kg, the GT-One would rocket along the Mulsanne Straight.
The GT-One pushed the limits of the production-based GT1 regulations; it was essentially a purpose-built prototype and used barely any elements of a Toyota road car, unlike the McLaren F1 GTR or Porsche 911 GT1.
However, it still complied with GT1 regulations to race at Le Mans. The FIA’s ruled stipulated that 25 road-going versions of GT1 race cars had to be built for a competitor to be allowed to contest a full season of the FIA GT Championship. On the other hand, Le Mans’ organisers – the ACO – mandated that only one road car had to be built for the car to compete at Le Mans only (as it was a standalone race back in 1998, and not part of the FIA GT Championship).
Toyota did just as the rules said. It built just one GT-One road car, registration: ‘K-LM 1998’. On the face of it, the road car was essentially the same as the GT1 competitor, just with some seats out of a Lotus Elise and the ventilation controls from a Ford Ka.
It did still have to pass the German TÜV compliance tests to be classified as a road car. This meant that Toyota raised the ride height, lowered the rear wing, and fitted a catalytic converter to make it roadworthy (among other details such as adding sound deadening and replacing the straight-cut gearbox). Interestingly, the road car also had to downsize its fuel tank, as the ACO insisted that the road-going counterpart must have ample luggage space. Valued at a cool €10 million as of 2021, the 550bhp supercar has driven a handful of miles in its life and rarely leaves the Toyota’s Cologne base.
The first of five race-prepared GT-One chassis were delivered in October, and by the end of the year Martin Brundle was hammering the car around Paul Ricard for testing. By the time the race came round in June 1998, the entire contingent of nine drivers across three cars had driven the GT-One.
The GT-One was fast from the outset; it narrowly missed out on the fastest lap time in the Pre-Qualification event held five weeks before the 24 hour race. When the real qualifying took place, Brundle’s Toyota was less than a second slower than the Mercedes CLK-LM which took pole.
Brundle took the lead on the opening lap, and his #28 Toyota led for the first few hours. Both Mercedes retired early on, and BMW soon followed suit with concerns over wheel bearings plaguing both of its V12 LMs. It set up a straight fight between Toyota and Porsche’s 911 GT1-98.
A spin for the #28 meant it lost the lead, and wheel bearing woes of its own saw it drop out of contention. Brundle would crash in the night, forcing Toyota’s first retirement. As the race went on, the transmission issues which would limit the GT-One’s progress began – first, the #27 lost over 20 laps, followed by the #29 needing gearbox repairs.
The #29 would fight back through the pack to third place, but the gearbox finally gave way in the last 90 minutes of the race. The second Toyota ground to a halt on track, and with it any hope of a Toyota victory. Porsche was not without its own delays, but none as serious as those that afflicted the Japanese brand. In the end, the sole remaining #27 GT-One crossed the line in ninth place, with Porsche claiming a 1-2 finish.
Toyota may have failed to take victory in the GT-One’s first outing, but its latest creation had proven speed, just not the reliability to match. It would return to Le Mans in 1999, though this time in the closed-cockpit LM-GTP class after the demise of GT1.
The GT-One would undergo some light modifications to enter the new-for-1999 class, including some aero changes, the inclusion of a smaller fuel tank, and the loss of ABS and traction control. In an effort to combat reliability problems, a manual override was added to the sequential gearbox in the event of an emergency.
After extensive winter testing and the creation of a seventh and final chassis, the GT-One arrived for Pre-Qualifying. Martin Brundle was five seconds faster than the year before, taking the fastest lap, and pole position for the race a few weeks later.
The revised GT-One would line up against the latest machines from Audi and Mercedes, as well as the open cockpit machines from BMW, Nissan and alike. The #1 Toyota led from pole but soon lost position in the pits. Le Mans 1999 is famous for the flying Mercedes CLR of Peter Dumbreck which ended up in the Mulsanne woodlands, but this problem for the Mercedes also meant that the race was essentially between BMW and Toyota.
The pole-sitting #1 Toyota lost time when hydraulic issues plagued its power steering and gearbox; a tyre blowout eventually took it out of the race entirely. The #2 GT-One picked up the baton, jostling with the BMWs for most of the race until it was struck by a slow-moving Porsche 911 GT2. Driver Thierry Boutsen crashed heavily at the Dunlop Chicane, cracking several vertebrae and effectively ending his career.
The all-Japanese lineup in the remaining #3 Toyota soldiered on in third. When the leading BMW crashed with a stuck throttle, it was catapulted into contention for the win – an intense duel with the #15 BMW V12 LMR ensued, and Toyota seemed to have the victory in hand when driver Ukyo Katayama was forced onto the curbs by a backmarker BMW. The Toyota sustained a puncture and had to settle for second place once again. It was still a momentous moment - as the all-Japanese crew took a Japanese car to the Le Mans podium - but perhaps not what Toyota’s bosses may have hoped for.
The GT-One contested just one more race in its lifetime: the Fuji 1000KM in late 1999. The one-off event was created by the Japan Automobile Federation and the ACO as a testbed to create a Japanese version of the American Le Mans Series. Toyota entered a single car against BMW and Nissan, taking pole by half a second. It still wasn’t to be – superior pitstop strategy in changing conditions saw Nissan surge ahead in the race. Toyota settled for second for a final time, a lap behind the leaders.
By 2000, the GT-One and Toyota’s Le Mans hopes had been mothballed in favour of the brand’s ill-fated F1 entry. When it returned to sportscar racing in 2012 with the TS030, Toyota was a very different beast, and 10 years later they had won Le Mans five times in a row. The GT-One lived on in fans’ hearts with its occasional appearances at heritage racing events, and as a favourite in the Gran Turismo gaming series, appearing in every game bar one since 1999.
In 2025, Toyota Gazoo Racing ran an homage livery to the GT-One on its #7 GR010. Toyota endured one of its most challenging Le Mans in years, with neither entry reaching the podium, though I doubt the red and white livery had anything to do with its struggles. Now, with a new name, a (partially) new car, and a retro GT-One-inspired livery, Toyota is back at Le Mans in 2026. Can they fight back to championship-winning form?
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