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Early last week, Toyota filed a trademark here in the U.S. for its high-performance “GRMN” moniker, possibly setting the stage for a slew of enthusiast-flavored Toyotas sometime in the near future. Whether and how this will actually come to fruition isn’t exactly up to us but if you ask for our professional forecast, the first GRMN to come Stateside would likely be that previously rumored 400-hp Supra.
What if it was up to us, though? What if, just for a day, Akio gave us the keys to the kingdom and said we could dictate what his company’s next U.S.-bound performance car would be? We were so engrossed by this fantasy, we thought it’d be a good question to ask our readers. So, what’ll it be? Super Supra? GR Yaris? Reborn MR2? Hot AWD Corolla? Million-dollar halo car? Let us know in the comments below.
If you ask us, a Sienna GRMN minivan is just what Toyota needs to up its fast car cred. Hear us out.
In an era when the Camry looks how it looks, Toyota needs something truly radical to properly make waves in the minds of enthusiasts. Anything that comes in to compete with an already-established competitor probably isn’t gonna cut it. Cars like the Porsche 911, Mazda Miata, and Honda Civic Type R already have their respective segments locked down and taking any of ’em on was always going to be an uphill battle.
Y’know what isn’t out there? A high-performance minivan. Specifically, a mid-engined high-performance minivan. Take the Sienna, ship its 2GR V6 over to Lotus for some supercharging, remove all six of its back seats, and throw that Brit-tuned Toyota engine in the middle of the car. Now that the space under the hood is freed up, you could even stick some hybrid electric motors in there to help power the front wheels just like they do in the Acura NSX. Boom, reborn Previa.
It already sounds halfway decent with a straight pipe (sorry for the NSFW language here):
Who needs a mid-engined Corvette when you can get the same layout in a Toyota van?
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