- [James Pumphrey] Akio Toyoda is a simple man
with simple goals.
Conquer the Nürburgring.
Dominate the World Rally Championship.
Resurrect one of the most important sports cars of all time.
Run the largest car company in the world.
Simple stuff, you know, like that.
But who made Toyoda-san
into a race car-loving CEO that he is today?
Why is his alter-ego a straight up shrub?
That's a little tree.
And what even the f***k is a gazoo?
Grab a Capri Sun and flush your toilet,
because this is everything you need to know
to get up to speed on gazoo racing.
(upbeat music)
- Thank you so much for joining me today.
There are two things you need to go fast;
big power and lightweight.
I've spent hours of research and development
to bring you this.
(hip hop music)
(all clapping)
(all cheering)
(upbeat music)
- Toyota Gazoo Racing has won LeMans four years in a row.
They've been 1st or 2nd
in the WRC Constructors Championship for four years.
And this year, they won Dakar;
the grueling and deadly,
yeah, deadly 9,000-mile off-road race
with nearly as many do not finishes as finishes.
And what they've learned in motorsport,
has influenced the design
of some of the most significant sports cars
of this here dang-darn millennium.
Now that success is due to hard work of thousands
of Toyota employees,
but the one man who has made it all possible
is a car enthusiast by the name
of Akio Toyoda, with a D.
(upbeat music)
And luckily, his last name is not a coincidence.
He just so happens to be the company's president.
All right, it's a pretty good job.
Okay, it's pretty good.
I'm not even the president of Donut, okay?
Gazoo Racing shows what's possible
for a "boring" car company
when the person at the top actually gives
a *bleep* about cars.
Crazy, right?
Akio Toyoda is even called "Master Driver", a title reserved
for the company's highest ranking test driver.
The coolest job title in the history of the world.
But Toyoda-san wasn't born a winning race car driver.
He was born as a businessman,
like "Boss Baby".
As the grandson of Toyota's founder, Kiichiro Toyoda,
Toyoda-san was on a path to one day
take charge of the family business.
But having the name that's on the sign out front,
isn't enough to be put in charge
of an international publicly-traded company.
It is for a lot of companies,
but props to Toyodas for not making it all you need.
I'm looking at you, Edsel Ford.
Toyoda-san had to learn the business.
After completing a Masters Degree in Finance in the US,
he officially became an employee of the Toyota Motor Company
in 1984.
But let's be clear, Toyoda-san wasn't just handed the keys
to the executive bathroom.
No, he had to pee in the regular old bathroom
just like everybody else.
His father, Shoichiro Toyoda, had recently become president.
And when Toyoda-san asked about joining the company,
his father was against it.
He said that nobody wants to be the president's son's boss.
And we can all identify with that, right?
I mean, I watch Succession, okay.
Kendall, much?
Rory Culkin, Kieren Culkin?
You got Macaulay, you got Rory, you got Kieran.
(James smacking)
I'm best friends with the Culkins.
But Toyoda-san wasn't deterred.
He applied and was hired as a junior manager
at the Motomachi Plant.
He spent 14 years climbing that old corporate ladder
before landing the Vice-President role.
It wasn't until 2000,
that Toyoda-san finally joined Toyotas board of directors.
16 years!? 16 years!?
I haven't have done anything for 16 years.
And around that same time, two monumental things happened
that would change the course of his life.
He was put in-charge
of an important part of Toyota's marketing strategy:
GAZOO.com.
Don't worry, we're going to explain what that means,
it's not just a flute that you hum into.
And then he met Toyota's then Master Driver Hiromu Naruse.
Now a bit on Hiromu Naruse:
He had applied for a job with Toyota in 1963.
Because he was certified in the use of an abacus,
he almost became an accountant.
Yes, an abacus!
They were used by serious business men in 1960s,
they helped send a guy to the moon.
But since Naruse was also a certified mechanic,
the company placed him in vehicle testing instead.
He really dodged a bullet here in my opinion.
Driving cars or do maths?
I'm taking cars everyday, baby!
He quickly developed a reputation
for telling engineers exactly how to improve their cars.
Now Naruse's feedback was crucial
to development of race cars like the Toyota 7
and sports car like the 2000 GT and by the 1970s,
Naruse was put in charge of Toyota Motorsport
and became chief test driver.
Over the next three decades, Naruse shaped the development
of the Toyota MR2, the Altezza
and the legendary MK4 Supra which was developed
at the Nurburgring.
James May eats the Nurburgring.
Because of all that testing,
Naruse drove more laps at the ring
than any other Japanese driver.
Ferrari test driver called him Nur-master
which means master of the Nurburgring.
These guys are from f***ing Ferrari
and at the time
Toyota's unofficial goal was
to make "ever-better" cars, an objective that was
later formalized,thanks to Toyoda-san.
Now Naruse said the only way to build better
was with drivers and engineers
testing under the most challenging conditions
racetracks and motorsports.
But by the year 2000,
he began to notice a change in the company.
(upbeat music)
- [Narrator] "Quieter, smoother, better than ever."
- Like my aunt's life before she left former-uncle Chris,
Toyota had begun to get "beige."
Guess what uncle Chris?
She's got a freaking belly-button ring now!
Surprise!
She's in Toulomb
with her 18 year old boyfriend.
Ooh, yeah, that sounds good!
Many thought the company's future was in the Prius,
baby SUVs like the RAV4,
and the perennial business salesguy car, the Camry.
Perhaps Naruse thought the only way Toyota
would ever return to being a performance powerhouse
is if he personally got sassy with some executives, alright.
So our boy went and got sassy, y'all!
Upon meeting Akio Toyoda in 2001,
he reportedly said,
"I don't want to hear you giving me advice about cars,
when you clearly don't know how to drive."
Then he ripped open his shirt and slapped him on the chest.
According to another person in the room,
he then offered- or threatened-
"I'll teach you how to drive."
This is to his boss, bro!
That meeting was a wake up call for Toyoda-san.
He completely agreed!
He described himself as "just a car lover"
who didn't know the first thing about
how to correctly evaluate a car.
So, in 2002, the Toyota executive vice-president
became an apprentice to the master driver.
And Naruse was not gonna go easy on him.
So he brought Toyoda-san to the Nurburgring!
Now, the Nurburgring has a bit of a reputation.
We made a whole video about it;
It's in the description below.
Calling the track the "green hell"
isn't some ironic nickname, like a huge guy named "Tiny."
It's actually an incredibly difficult
and deadly piece of road.
Exact numbers of fatalities are hard to come by,
but estimates go as high as 12 deaths per year.
That's one death a month.
Imagine, every time you write your rent check,
some guy dies.
So, Toyoda-san was beginning his apprenticeship
on max difficulty.
But he also had the best teacher.
Now, he just needed the best car
and that was a problem.
Naruse's car of choice was the Nurburgring-tested MK4 Supra,
a car Toyota had discontinued that very year.
But Naruse and Toyoda-san refused
to settle for anything less.
So for four years, they trained at the Nurburgring,
driving whatever used Supras they could track down.
- [Akio Toyoda] At that time Supra
is no longer in production, no longer sales.
All other car makers, their vehicle
is the vehicle which they are going to introduce
two or three year from now.
Only Toyota, only myself, is driving used car.
- Now, Toyota-san wasn't just
learning how to drive from Naruse.
He was learning an entire philosophy about cars.
According to Naruse, "roads make cars".
So, to understand what makes a great car,
you have to experience lots of different environments
where cars are used, all right.
It became clear that turning lap after lap
after lap after lap after lap after lap after lap
after lap at the Nurburgring wasn't enough,
Naruse said they needed to go racing.
The two decided to build a race team of Toyota employees,
to spread Naruse's message of 'Genchi Genbutsu'-
(upbeat music)
Naruse had always been critical of engineers
who stayed behind a desk,
so in 2007, they assembled a crew to participate
in the 24 hours of Nurburgring endurance race.
They were gonna pee in the chair
and sit in the chair together.
They do pee in the car.
Toyota had been active in motorsports for decades.
Racing was in the company's and Toyoda-san's DNA.
In 1952, the founder - his grandfather - said,
"Car racing is more than entertainment.
It is vital to development."
But 50 years later, Toyota was a different company,
and Toyoda-san wasn't president yet.
His plan to go racing didn't have the company's blessing.
Now since they weren't an official factory-backed team,
Toyota refused to provide cars.
So, the team went out and bought two used Altezzas
which was another model that had been discontinued.
You might know them as the first generation Lexus IS car
here in the States.
But because this was all unofficial,
they weren't allowed to have cars wearing Toyota livery.
But since Toyoda-san oversaw
the company's Internet presence,
their Altezzas wore gazoo.com liveries.
And we've come full circle!
Okay, so 'gazoo' is kind of a silly word in English.
But in Japanese, gazō means 'image' or 'picture'
and it's the word Toyota chose
for its "visual information systems," or terminals.
The Gazoo terminals were installed
all over Japan in the 90s,
so customers could access a Toyota network
and get information about cars.
That system evolved into gazoo.com,
which functioned as a combo platter of Facebook and Amazon.
So, in 2007, Gazoo Racing was born
without factory support or permission,
and their first race was covered in a blog
on gazoo.com as though they were just another private team.
To help keep their efforts quiet,
Toyoda-san entered the race under a pseudonym Morizo.
Much like the team itself, Toyota's conservative leadership
didn't approve of what Toyoda-san was doing.
They weren't thrilled about a company executive
participating in such a dangerous 'hobby' as auto racing.
Toyoda-san chose 'Morizo'
because it was the name of a popular mascot
at the 2005 World's Expo in Aichi prefecture,
home of Toyota.
Morizo was a sentient shrub,
(upbeat music)
or bush promoting a theme of eco-friendliness.
I can get behind it.
With a rag-tag bunch of drivers, mechanics,
and engineers fielding second-hand cars
and a chief driver named after a freaking bush,
Gazoo Racing was set to compete
in one of the most grueling races in the world.
Some of the team had never been involved in a race before,
which made it a complete shock when they won!
(upbeat music)
I'm lying, they didn't even come close.
The cars finished 104th and 110th overall,
which was 14th and 16th out of the 19 entrants
in their class but it was their first race,
and Naruse had set a specific goal for the team,
don't drive to win, drive to learn.
The point of doing the Nurburgring 24 was that
it subjected the cars to the most extreme circumstances
a road car will ever face.
An endurance race doesn't just reveal
how well the car performs as a sports car,
it teaches you how reliable it is.
Figure that out, and you can build ever-better road cars.
That's a very Toyota way to think about racing.
Not everyone at Toyota was critical of their efforts.
Over at Lexus, they'd been working with Naruse
on one of their most exciting projects ever,
the V10-powered LFA supercar.
So Good!
Lexus engineers had done most of the early testing
at the Nurburgring, and to them,
Gazoo Racing's first trip to the ring was a huge success.
It was decided that, to be the best car it could be,
the LFA needed to go racing, too.
For the next two years, LFA prototypes
ran the Nurburgring 24 for Gazoo Racing.
Again, the mandate was not to win, but to learn.
But in 2010, that mandate changed.
If Lexus wanted to make the LFA
one of the greatest cars ever made,
they needed to prove that it could win.
So what did they do?
They freaking won!
(upbeat music)
The LFA won its class,
beating out Audi R8s, Corvettes, BMWs, Porsches
and a factory-backed Aston Martin team.
Unfortunately, Gazoo Racing's first victory
was soon overshadowed by tragedy.
One month after Gazoo's first win,
on the 2-mile road
between the 'ring and Toyota's development offices,
Naruse was fatally injured in a head-on collision.
He was driving a special Nurburgring-edition
LFA prototype that he'd spent the day testing on the track.
He somehow ended up on the wrong side of the road,
and collided with a BMW-owned test car.
Naruse was the only fatality,
and the ultimate cause of the accident remains unknown.
Toyoda-san was obviously heartbroken.
He'd lost a mentor and a dear friend.
Naruse had been so integral to Gazoo Racing,
his death could have meant the entire end of it.
Toyoda-san was now president of Toyota,
and considered shutting down Gazoo,
but decided that isn't what Naruse would have wanted.
They had both believed that motorsport
was the key to making "ever-better cars."
Gazoo Racing had also moved from an off-the-record race team
to a huge marketing success for Toyota.
They began producing special "G-sports" editions of cars
to capitalize on Gazoo's success,
and had begun production of "GRMN" special editions.
Now that stood for
"Gazoo Racing tuned by the Meister of the Nurburgring,"
a specific reference to Naruse.
The GRMN badge lives on,
now alluding to the new master driver, Morizo.
Toyoda-san's alter-ego 'Morizo'
has become a bit of a sensation.
During Gazoo Racing's early years,
he maintained a blog on gazoo.com
where he talked about driving.
His posts often included cartoon illustrations
of Morizo accompanied by a dog,
both wearing Gazoo Racing suits.
He describes the Morizo character as
his "invisibility cloak"
an alter ego that gives him the freedom
to cast off the business suit
and stuffiness expected from a Toyota executive,
and be the car lover that Naruse taught him to be.
Look, this guy isn't the car company president we deserve,
he's a car company president that we need!
He's a man who passed out
self-made inspirational Morizo stickers at car shows
and then did donuts in the parking lot.
After taking the helm at Toyota,
he famously issued a companywide decree stating,
"No more boring cars,
I'm about to freaking fall asleep on here,
make something exciting"
He is a true, passionate car enthusiast,
and he's in charge of the largest car company in the world.
Naruse's philosophy and Toyoda-san's passion
launched Toyota's return to motorsports dominance.
After Naruse's death, Toyoda-san stepped away from racing,
but Gazoo continued at the 'ring,
claiming victory in three separate classes in 2014,
with the LFA and the new Toyota 86.
2015 saw Morizo return to competition,
where he personally drove an LFA to victory
at the Nurburgring 24.
This guy is the freaking president of the f***ing company!
That same year saw Gazoo Racing, Toyota Racing
and Lexus Racing unified under the Toyota Gazoo Racing name,
and a new dedicated German factory
that develops and builds their race and performance cars.
That facility made Toyota's return
to LeMans and the WRC possible,
where they've been dominant since 2018.
All that racing isn't just for bragging rights,
even though it's nice; it's for making better cars.
Since 2009, there have been many Gazoo special editions,
everything from the tiny IQ to the limo-like Century.
The latest and greatest is the GR Yaris,
an All Wheel Drive turbo-charged mini-monster
inspired by the Gazoo WRC car.
This is a rally car for the road,
but it wasn't made available in the US.
But something is coming.
Toyota says that the GR Corolla will be arriving
in October of this year,
and it has the same powertrain as the Yaris.
It's a little bigger, a little fatter but so are we.
Gazoo-based special editions are great,
but after everything he learned from Naruse,
Toyoda-san knew that Toyota
needed to make sports cars again.
To ensure that happened without interference,
a separate GR brand was launched
and the Gazoo Racing Company was established.
That in-house company was given independent authority
for the return of the Supra,
possibly the most important nameplate in Toyota's history.
During final testing,
before the Supra was approved for 2019 production,
the president of Gazoo Racing
was asked what was left to do.
He responded,
"We must wait for Morizo to drive the Supra
at the Nürburgring
and give the final seal of approval."
That's what it means to be a "master driver."
At a race in October 2018,
Toyoda-san competed in the Supra prototype,
after the race, he spoke the following words
to the late Naruse.
"Naruse-san, we have finally come back to the Nürburgring
with the new Supra."
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