Toyota revs up its motorsport ambitions

  • Jan 3, 2012
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Toyota Kirloskar Motors Ltd. will be the unlikely but welcome new entrant with motorsport as one of its main promotional arms in 2012 and beyond. Adil Jal Darukhanawala has the backgrounder to this new and very positive approach to the game.


Toyota Etios Cup Car

The ultra competitive dynamics in the automotive world are also making their presence felt in India and that too in a very welcome sort of way. The fight for world domination is right now a three-pronged affair with GM and Toyota slugging it out for world’s largest car maker though both might say they don’t intend to see much in this competition. However, the surprise acceleration of the VW Group to come within a whisker’s breadth of upstaging them both is also a nagging worry for the two main protagonists!

Having seen how aggressive Volkswagen has been in India despite being a recent entrant, Toyota Kirloskar Motor Ltd. is now preparing to emulate its German rival and that too by venturing forth into the Indian motor sport scene! As is well known, Volkswagen has really done its bit to tap into a whole new breed of young Indian race drivers via its Polo Cup series over the past three season. This series has seen many a budding young race car driver in the making get to grips with equally matched machines along with training to enhance his skill sets, his racecraft, his strategy outlook, his mental and physical well being plus also his ability to master PR as well as learn the intricate but important art of seeking sponsors. No wonder then that the VW Polo Cup today commands such a high profile in the minds of the Indian motorsport fraternity.

Toyota Etios Cup Car

Now Toyota wants in and at Auto Expo 2012 it will reveal its motorsport plans for India using the Etios and Etios Liva in a series of competitive events tailored to get not just budding young Indian talent to the sport but also to bring the sport within the reach and experience of the average man on the street. The company was seized of this idea but unlike the VW Polo Cup series, the Etios Motor Racing Challenge will be on the lines of their promotions in Thailand where autocross events, drifting competitions and maybe TSD (time, speed and distance) navigation rallies would be the way forward.

The company has already started a small division at its Bidadi facility to prepare the cars for the sport and while exact details would be revealed within a day, I am sure that a second world giant coming in would only help raise the level and the profile of the sport in a land which has F1 but is sparse at the ground roots level. Well done Toyota and thanks also to Volkswagen for being the catalyst for change!

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