Toyota could also be about to aim one of many strangest Frankenstein tasks in latest historical past. The corporate has begun hinting at one thing you’d have discovered comical not way back. However, in case you’ve been paying consideration, it’s much less of a stretch lately.

There could also be a high-performance Prius on the best way.

The proof, we admit, is slim. However it comes from a division of Toyota that likes to get playful with hints and teasers. And it’s nearly Memorial Day weekend, so we’re all feeling just a little whimsical. You’ll be able to permit us one enjoyable one.

The trace comes from Toyota Gazoo Racing – each an precise racing division and a store that builds high-performance vehicles just like the GR86 and GR Supra.

Gazoo Racing Frolics On-line When They’re As much as One thing

GR has a historical past of appearing mischievous after they have one thing enjoyable up their sleeve. In 2021, they began sneaking tiny hints of an aggressively styled sizzling hatch into advertisements for different Toyota vehicles. For months, the thriller automotive confirmed up within the shadows or within the distance in advertisements for the traditional Corolla hatchback.

By the point the GR Corolla appeared on the market, the world was primed for the little 300-horsepower, limited-run sizzling hatch.

They’re Beginning Once more

That course of could also be beginning once more. Gazoo Racing is making ready to compete within the legendary 24 Hours of Lemans endurance race in a number of weeks. They’ve launched a web site highlighting the drivers and prototype vehicles they’ll be operating there.

On the backside is an unexplained picture. It exhibits a storage door opening on a automotive with a Gazoo Racing license plate. The license plate body signifies that this isn’t a race automotive. It’s a GR model of a manufacturing automotive.

Quad lights mounted low don’t match any current Toyota product. However the form of the decrease air dam and the placement of the tow hook covers above do. And it’s a bizarre one.

It appears to match the size of the brand new 2023 Toyota Prius.

If We’re Loopy, So Are Others

We’re not the one ones to note this.

Motor1 says, “Name us loopy, however it would possibly simply be a 2023 Prius dressed up as a race automotive.”

CarScoops involves the identical conclusion, saying, “The higher a part of the bumper makes us assume it could be a beefed-up model of the Toyota Prius.”

CarBuzz says it. AutoSpies got here to the identical conclusion. Little by little, the automotive press is coalescing round the concept that there’s a high-performance Prius on the best way.

Nobody would purchase the thought if we have been speaking in regards to the final Prius.

The 2023 Prius Is Really Sort of Fast

However the 2023 Prius is a wildly completely different automotive than each Prius mannequin that got here earlier than. Our Colin Ryan, one of many first to drive it, mentioned, “The notoriously lackadaisical Prius is now faster than maybe most vehicles in its dimension/value vary.”

Our Mike Hazard, a veteran Prius proprietor, obtained a while behind the wheel and really shouted, “wheeee!”

In base type, the Prius now boasts 194 horsepower and an aggressive wedge form which may not look ridiculous in GR type.

And we do anticipate new tasks from GR this yr. Former Toyota CEO Akio Toyoda – a well-respected semi-pro race automotive driver in addition to a enterprise chief – not too long ago stepped down from main the corporate to give attention to ardour tasks at GR. That is simply the sort of whimsy he’d endorse.

We’ll have to attend for greater than the bottom 4 inches of the entrance bumper to make certain. However, if Gazoo’s historical past is any information, that is simply the primary in a sequence of frisky teasers earlier than we’ll know for positive.