Toyota TMG performance sub-brand

The Japanese carmaker is combining the brainpower from its one-time Formula One centre in Europe with production capacity in Japan.

The shock decision to go all-out against AMG and M is revealed by the president of Toyota Motorsport in Cologne, Yoshiaki Kinoshita. "It's an official plan," Kinoshita reveals for the first time during an exclusive interview with Australian journalists. "I cannot show you today, but we have such a kind of plan. Not AMG, but change A to T."

Toyota has already shown its early commitment to driving cars - which it calls Waku Doki, for heart-pounding excitement - with the impressive new 86 coupe, which was developed under a personal directive from Toyota's president, Akio Toyoda. The TMG plan shifts things up a gear and proves that Toyota wants to translate the lessons it learned in grand prix racing, even though the project was a failure, into its road cars.

"After we stopped Formula One we decided several things. One of the things is to become an AMG type of company," says Kinoshita. "We are now trying. (But) how difficult, or how feasible, I don't know. I think we are in a very good position, and location."

TMG is about to begin development of a road going Lexus LS with a 485 kiloWatt twin-turbo V8 engine, using the 250 staff who survived Toyota's withdrawal from Formula One. Many have recently been deployed on a Le Mans sports car racing program that saw Toyota challenging Audi last weekend - and leading briefly - at the French endurance classic.

The giant German facility has everything from two wind tunnels and F1-style test rigs to high-tech production facilities for carbon fibre and other exotic materials, as well as the engineers need to turn ideas into reality. The TMG museum in Cologne includes a wide range of competition cars developed and built under the Toyota umbrella, from World Rally Championship contenders to F1 cars, Le Mans racers and even a full carbon fibre Lexus LFA racing sports car that perhaps hints at the future style of a TMG hero car.

"We have people, we have computers, all we need is power," says Kinoshita. He confirms plans to tweak the Lexus flagship as a tester and taster for TMG cars, but is not dismissing the difficulty of the job.
"It is one of the trials, for which kind of car we can make," he says. "Our strong point is that we can make special engines, special chassis, and special aero. Our weakest point is how to get Euro 5 emissions, how to get Euro 6, how to get homologation. We are now learning these things."

Kinoshita says he has considered doing a TMG work over on the 86 but believes it's not the right target for his company. "We have already tuned an 86, but it is not a road version. Currently we have no plan to make a road version of 86."

Kinoshita will not give a timetable for the TMG plan but is clearly enthusiastic about the potential and has strong backing from Japan to make it happen. "This facility can use 1000 head count. We can do five times more. It is building the brand image."