(Original air date – 4/1/2012) – BangShift has learned that Toyota will be joining NHRA Pro Stock in 2013 by entering a version of the upcoming 2013 Toyota Solara as their chosen body style. The designs you see below have been approved by the NHRA tech department and we believe that the rendering, which BangShift received from an unnamed source very close to the project is an accurate picture of what the car will look like.
BangShift has also learned that General Motors is furious with this decision, especially with respect to the engine which will be used in the car. Sources indicate that the engine is a near carbon copy of the DRCE engine that GM Pro Stock teams use, and the latest in the DRCE series which has been the dominant engine in the class for many years. “This is incredible,” said one GM insider. “If you look at the Toyota NASCAR engine for more than 12 seconds you can tell it is almost completely based off our engine and here they go again. The only thing that would have made this worse was if we were told that Toyota got to run overhead cams and fuel injection like the Harleys in Pro Stock Motorcycle.”
Toyota officials were unreachable and we are awaiting their response to this story. Rumors have abounded for years that the company was considering a move to enter Pro Stock but there was never any concrete plan or evidence. That situation has changed, apparently. We reached out to several racers, all who declined to be interviewed on the record, but one longtime GM racer said only, “Really? I know one thing. It will be faster than the Fords.” He then hung up.
We do not know who the driver of the car will be or what teams have expressed interest in running the new combo for Toyota. We also have no idea how the majority of NHRA drag racing fans will react to this news. As more information becomes available we will bring it to you, but keep your eyes peeled for more updates on what has to be the biggest news to hit Pro Stock in 20 years.
(CREDIT: ID Motorsports Design rendering)
I was all excited for a minute, but then I saw the motor was a big V8 and not a Toyota. NHRA dinosaurs missed a trick with that one I think. Shame.
Hmmm apparently toyota cant build a ricer fart can naturally aspirated car to hang with the american built v8’s …so they have to resort to ripping off other companys designs.
No … its simply a matter of the NHRA banning DOHC motors which Toyota’s been doing for decades while the likes of GM Ford etc can’t get beyond their pushrod dinosaurs
Personally I think this is all pretty funny . First Chrysler/FIAT choses the Dart over the Challenger as their Pro Stock entrant ( what do you expect from an idiot like Marchionne ) and now Toyota’s choosing to kick GM’s back side ….. again …. this time on the 1/4 mile
GM’s becoming a sad story to tell of late . Sales in the toilet Worldwide . Garbage on offer on their showroom floors . The (re) VOLT(ing ) Government subsidized POS Volt . Pairing up with an even bigger loses ( PSA ) than themselves .
Face it . GM’s become a tragedy as well as a bad parody of their former selves
Really? What current Ford motor has pushrods? Ford has been out of the pushrods business for many years now but I suspect that you learned all that you needed to know long before that happened.
My philosophy is ABJ when it comes to cars. Anything But Japanese! General Motors should start investing in overweight Americans to take on the best Sumo Wrestlers in Japan just for giggles…
April Fools ? On the 2nd ?
I quit watching nascar because of Toyota. Now they are getting ready to stink up NHRA pro-stock drag racing. I’m totally pissed!
X2
X2 on the April 2nd idea, I quit watching NASCAR in the early ’70’s…
Amen ! I stopped watching when Stock Car Racing became anything but ‘ stock ‘
The article is dated April 1 and is clearly a hoax. Just read it. The shot at Ford (although its true, unfortunately) is not something anyone would say along with being highly doubtful that whoever said it would just hang upsaying only that.
toyoda, the land of stealing R&D
Aahh the far east…. were R&D means Recieve & Duplicate!
Reminds me of an AMC resurrection article in HRM a few years ago. 😉
If this is an April fools joke without clearing it up at the end of the article I won’t visit this site again. I almost threw up on my living room floor.
The article states that the car being used is a Solara… but the artists rendering is a Camry as stated on the upper right portion of the trunklid… hopefully this is a hoax… if not, I think Grumpy Jenkins would be rolling in his grave…
To me, Pro Stock has been dead for years. This just drives the final nail in the coffin for the class. Pro Modified needs to be a PRO class…
ELMER FUDD HITS THE NAIL ON THE HEAD. PRO STOCK IS NOT EXCITING ANY MORE. THE CARS ALL LOOK THE SAME, RUN THE SAME, THERE IS NO ORIGINALITY IN THE CLASS. PRO MOD IS ONE OF THE MOST EXCITING CLASSES THERE IS. THE CARS RUN LIKE THE AA/FUEL ALTERDS OF OLD. HAIRY RACING FROM BEAUTIFUL CARS!!!!!
Not content with ruining NASCAR, Toyota has to kill what little’s left of PS. Man, this is awful!
The Grump sowed the seeds for this mess when he lobbied Wally into accepting non-production-based race cars.
Well boys and girls, I don’t why everyone is so bent out of shape over this Toyota thing, if it’s true? Once the NHRA, IHRA, AHRA, NASCAR and all the rest sold out to the corporations, well that was the beginning of the end for me. This is, if it’s true, just another one of those corporates deals.
So tell me what’s the difference if the car has Mopar, Ford, Chevrolet or Toyota on it? They are all American Corporations and they all build cars here in the United States utilizing UAW American workers; That’s a good thing isn’t it? Aren’t they just like NAPA, Castrol, Home Depot, AMP, Budwieser, Coke, Miller and so on?
We’d like to think racing is racing but the fact of the matter is, the corporation are the ones who are calling the shots and the NHRA’s, NASCAR’s or who ever think they are in control, well they better wake up and smell the nitro, because at any minute the corporations can, and have, pulled the plug, and all racing come to a screeching hault!
I’m very thankfull that I grew up watching guys like, M.T., Smokey, Big Daddy, Grumpy, The Ridge Route Terrors just to name a few. These were men among men in the car world, could think on their own and didn’t give a damn what anyone or any corporation would say on Monday.
So what if Toyota is coming in with and engine similer to Chevy’s. Who did Chevy steal their design from??? When NHRA, NASCAR or who ever says; “here’s the rule book, build you engine according to this, and we’ll be fine”. Well guess what? You build your engine according to the rules spec and they’ll all come out pretty close to the same in design!
Inovation is now gone and so are all the patriarchs of motorsports racing.
I think we should worry if one day we wake up, turn on our TV’s, and see the entire field of a NASCAR race full of nothing but foreign nameplates.
I think “NITROBLAST” has got the right idea going there. I don’t know why everybody is cryin like they didn’t get invited to Timmy’s Birthday Party after school. I really think that the sport could really use some new blood. And I don’t know why GM is so upset, unless they are actually afraid of what Toyota might bring to the table & just how high they might set the bar & what do they mean when they say that the Toyota engine is just like theirs, highly unlikely, & even if it did, it just shows that GM has a design worthy of copying, & like NITRO said, just about all of those engines are quite similar anyway. They should be good & glad that it wasn’t American Honda that decided to go racing, I mean, look at the strangle-hold they have on the Indy Circuit, what,like 90% are Honda powered, & for good reasons. They win ALOT of races & not ONE of their engines has ever been blown up in competition, EVER!! Well, if Toyota wants to be the new kid on the block, well then BRING IT, show us what got!! And in the true American Spirit, the really innovative designers & builders that we have will jump into the challenge with all they got, & they’ll come up with whatever it takes, bet we’ll see some really amazing racing to say the least, it might even make it wild & fun again!!…………Peace/Out….;{
Brian,give it up,real or not? The Solara is the 2 door Camry so thats acurate,I dont know about the rest. That is also alot to go through (the rendering) for a joke. So spill the beans.
This is an April Fool’s joke. Toyota killed the Solara a few years ago and Stu @ id motorsports design did the rendering. He rules and I think the rendering sold it for a lot of people. This one got a LOT of attention and some people flipped all the way out. 🙂
Brian
Good one, Brian. Very, very good.
BRIAN……YOU ARE A BAD BOY! GOOD ONE. BUT TRUTH BE TOLD PRO MOD SHOULD BE THE “BIG” PRO CLASS. AS CHAD WOULD SAY…THEY ARE BITCHEN’
OFF SHORE JUNK THEY WILL BE RUNNING GM POWER PLANT WITCH IS JUNK ALSO.KINDA LINDA LIKE ARE WHITE HOUSE STAFF.FORD ARE COMMING BACK TRUE BLUE OVAL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
@ Brian Lohnes: But why let a trifling technicality get in the way of lambasting ‘Yoda and the “stockless” captivity of NHRA PS?
@ NITRONUT: Toyota is an “American corporation” that uses UAW workers? Really? You’d think the UAW would know that: See http://www.uaw.org/cars?car_year=2012&car_make=Toyota (listing no UAW-built Toyota vehicles)
Toyota Motor Corporation is headquartered in Toyota, Aichi, Japan. Is Japan one of the “57 States” [sic]?
FYI for Speedy;
Okay it’s called Toyota Motor North America and it’s headquarters is located in Torrance, California and operates as a holding company in North America. Its manufacturing headquarters is located in Erlanger, Kentucky, and is known as Toyota Motor Engineering & Manufacturing North America, or TEMA.
Toyota has a large presence in the United States with six major assembly plants in Huntsville, Alabama; Georgetown, Kentucky; Princeton, Indiana; San Antonio, Texas; Buffalo, West Virginia and Blue Springs, Mississippi. Toyota had a joint-venture operation with General Motors at New United Motor Manufacturing Inc. (NUMMI), in Fremont, California, which began in 1984 and ended in 2009. It still has a joint-venture with Subaru at Subaru of Indiana Automotive, Inc. (SIA), in Lafayette, Indiana, which started in 2006. In these assembly plants, the Camry and the Tundra are manufactured, among others.
(Wikipedia)
I don’t have a total number of UAW members working at Toyota plants, but according to a “UAW” website and I quote “4,500 dedicated members of UAW Local 2244 ” work at Toyota’s NUMMI plant in Fremont, CA.
I hope that helps clear the air a little.
ps. I ment to say “worked” not “work” at Toyota’s NUMMI plant. Sorry my bad.
They win ALOT of races & not ONE of their engines has ever been blown up in competition, EVER!!
Wildman,,,,you need to check your facts. Hondas have blown up in competition. Ok , the had a race were ever car had their engine, and none blew up… that sounds like they are not on the Edge!
Post up some facts….
Toyota has pulled this bullshit for years. Remember the old Land Cruisers, they copied the old Chevy inline 6 cyl. The engine is nothing more than big block Chevy. The prostock drivers should boycott the Winternationals! If you can’t come up with an original engine just quit
It could of been a KIA
LMAO running the April Fools joke at the end of the year. Definitely a best of!!
Too funny!
Hmmm… Kudos to Brian for pulling this off but since he told us the truth, we can critique the joke, right? I think it would have been funnier if the announcement would have been Kia or something. Just sayin.
That said, you pulled all the right strings. Toyota was involved in a lawsuit between Bill Davis Racing and Chrysler. This was as Toyota was planning to enter hallowed ‘Merican motorsports nether regions of Sprint Car and Midget Racing. Toyota hired Bill to basically steal the winning Mopar sprint car engine design. At the time Mopar was sponsoring Tony Stewart’s sprint/midget team. It was proven that Bill sent the Mopar designs to them. Funny how he is the one who went down when it was Toyota benefiting from his illegal behavior.
Here’s a good play-by-play of the legal wrangling http://www.jayski.com/pages/tracks/lawsuit-dodge-davis.htm
‘Toyota Century’ wiki.
Toyota’s V8 history.
Settle down.
Keep On Rockin’ in the Free World.
When Toyota and GM announced a joint partnership to build vehicles at the Fontana,California( “Can’t-Afford-Ya”) plant in the 1980s,I was really expecting to see some Toyotas equipped with factory Chevrolet 350s.
Sad to see NHRA sell out to the japs.
Probably just a rumor, one of the guys to ask might be Matt Scranton, As far as copying goes, The Ford Pro Stock Hemi is almost an exact copy of the Dodge Pro Stock Hemi and the Ford Wedge (do you know about that one?) is a copy of the DRCE3. This is a result of NHRA’s rule structure which limits the engines to pushrods and 4.900 bore centerlines. Rumors are that they will be going to F.I. in the near future. People that criticsize them as being “Dinosaurs” have no idea of the amount of R&D that goes into the engines, 500ci engines with 4.730 bores and a stroke of 3.550 that are capable of 10,600 to 11,000 rpm are very high tech. If Toyota were smart they would build a Hemi.
Really? This is as bad as Ford/Force calling the Boss 500 a “Ford” design. LOL! I think if the NHRA allows Toyota into Pro Stock, they should allow Mopar to run the original 426 Hemi design.
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