A race-ready Toyota bZ? Yep, it’s coming to SEMA next week.
If you take a look around the Toyota lineup right now, you’ll find test beds for some awesome performance builds. Sporty, fun cars like the Supra or GR86 come to mind (the latter of which the automaker did last year, with a GR Corolla’s powertrain), or maybe a retromod based on an old-school Land Cruiser (Toyota did that too)? This time around, though, we’re looking at one of many concepts hitting SEMA next week: the Toyota bZ Time Attack. A race car based on the ordinary bZ crossover.
Now, the standard bZ race car ticks a few boxes in Toyota’s range. “Race car” isn’t one of them at first brush, but it’s going with the idea here. In fact, the Toyota bZ Time Attack is a 100% working race prototype, meant to show what its engineers can do with electric motors rather than internal combustion.
To that end, the latest concept is based around the recently refreshed bZ. But instead of offering up 338 horsepower, this dual motor Time Attack offers up 400 horsepower through a unique ECU calibration, as well as a host of race-ready upgrades.
The Toyota bZ Time Attack concept has a six-inch wider track than the standard car for a more planted stance, as well as aerodynamics galore. There’s a beefy splitter at the front, wide fender flares, a huge rear diffuser and an even more massive rear wing. And if the aero doesn’t make it look low enough, Toyota lopped six inches off the standard car’s ride height, using Tein coilovers and springs, while you also get a beefier Alcon brake system with Hawk track-spec pads taken from the 86 Cup and the Corolla TC race car.
The Toyota bZ Time Attack Concept sits on a set of 19×11-inch BBS Unlimited wheels, equipped with 305/30-ZR19 Continental ExtremeContact Sport 02 tires.
Inside, the Time Attack (naturally) loses all the usual creature comforts.
Instead of your typical bZ interior, this concpet gets a full FIA-spec 4130 chromoly cage, as well as a pair of OMP HTE-R racing seats and harnesses. The rest of the interior is gone, with only the rotary dial shifter and a few switches remaining. Weirdly, the Toyota team kept that whole switch assembly intact, so you still get a button to control the camera view, as well as automatic brake hold and…Eco Mode? Really?
Oh, and Toyota saw fit to stick a “BEV” badge to the intrument panel, as if it wasn’t already completely obvious.
The automaker built this concept, among several it’s bringing to Las Vegas this year, to explore new territory and see how much potential there really is within Toyota’s EV platform.
Does that mean we’ll see a more potent bZ pretty soon? I don’t think it’s terribly likely — and this racer almost certainly isn’t going into production. Nevertheless, it does seem there’s a little room to push the boundaries of this electric crossover’s performance. Whether you’d actually really want to do that in retail cars is another story.
