Supercharged Aurion, Toyota’s first official TRD model

Posted Fri Mar 2 2007 11:54 AM by Viknesh Vijayenthiran

Toyota Racing Development has been prepping Toyota’s race cars as well as its street cars for years. Designing and building TRD branded go-fast bits for cars such as the Supra or Celica. However, Toyota has never officially released a vehicle branded under the TRD label. This is set to change with the introduction of the Aurion TRD, which was unveiled yesterday at the Melbourne International Motor Show in Australia. The first time anywhere in the world Toyota is engineering and marketing a car under the TRD banner.

The TRD Aurion, slated for sale from the third quarter of this year, will feature a supercharged 3.5L V6 engine sending at least 235kW to the front wheels. The package also comes with 19in alloys, a sports bodykit, lowered suspension and upgraded brakes. Currently, the car is only planned to be sold in Australia but considering that the Aurion is sold in other markets as the Camry, we may just see blown versions overseas. Toyota also displayed its TRD HiLux SUV-Concept powered by a 4.0L supercharged V6 that’s also scheduled to enter production by the end of the year.

Despite running its own Formula One team, Toyota does not have a true sports model to showcase its motorsport technology. We hope the introduction of this TRD branded model and the new IS-F from Lexus are a sign of things to come.

Reader Comments

Sat Mar 3 2007 5:02 PM
biturbo says

Aurion = Camry
235 kW = 315 HP
FWD torque steer
Camry TRD = Bland, boring, FWD with useless power
TRD, powerful cars are RWD or AWD, surely you know that.
I guess that Toyota would be better off sticking with their current policy of having zero sporty cars...
Toyota = lame
Mon Oct 8 2007 10:01 PM
jimbo says

how bout toyota of making the supra tho? that so many ppl envy? =O

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