The Toyota Prius draws the derision of racing and auto enthusiasts everywhere and the hybrid certainly has its share of stereotypes. However, there are at least a couple of Priuses (Prii?) that deserve a bit of respect: the Prius GTs. They race in the GT300 class of Japan’s Super GT series and nothing about them will prompt thoughts of left-lane blocking and 40 mph highway cruising. Instead, these are full-bore racing cars and they mean business.
The Super GT series has two classes, GT500 for cars with more than 600 horsepower and GT300 for sightly slower cars. The Prius GTs race in the GT300 class, which is comprised mostly of FIA GT3-spec cars but also with a few cars homologated by the series. The Priuses that race are, in fact, hybrids, but don’t let that you fool you. They don’t run the paltry double-digit four-cylinder engine that run the front wheels of a normal Prius. Rather, the Prius GT is rear-wheel drive and runs a detuned version of the naturally aspirated V8 used in Toyota’s 2015 Le Mans car.
They’re properly insane and if you gotta driver a Prius, why not a 500-horsepower Race Prius? If only Toyota built street-car versions of these. If only.
Prius huh. Then I hate it. You can not make a prius cool. It’s like trying to make bruce jenner into a hot woman.
But I do like that lemans V8.
Although it makes absolutely zero sense from a marketing standpoint that I can see, I’m glad somebody at Toyota had enough of a sense of humor to go and put a Prius body on their GT300 racers.
been driving a prius v as a bodyshop loaner for two weeks , what a soul sucking no fun pos . the old lady pulled up next to me in the drive way with the cummins and blew so much smoke at the the thing it actually left black soot on the pussy mobile .