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Lexus has revealed its Sport Concept at Monterey Car Week, and it’s shaping up to be part of something special.
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Live from Monterey Car Week, Lexus just pulled the covers off something called the Sport Concept during the 2025 edition of The Quail, A Motorsports Gathering. We expected it would be the production version of the camouflaged car we’ve seen recently running around on California roads and flying up the hill of the Goodwood Festival of Speed. But it’s not. This is something different. Which leads us to the following conclusion: Toyota is going to build three new high-performance coupes, not two. One is an endurance race car that will compete in the GT3 class; the second is a sports car/supercar that will compete with vehicles like the AMG GT and Porsche 911 GT3; and the third is what Lexus revealed today. The latter looks to be a high-design, luxury coupe, most likely a replacement for the much loved but slow-selling LC coupe. The two-sentence press release about the car refers to it as the Lexus Sport Concept.
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With almost no fanfare and even less explanation, Toyota brought two camouflaged cars to this year’s Goodwood Festival of Speed. One was quite obviously a race car and was billed only as the Toyota GT Racing Concept. The other was a road car called the Toyota GT Concept. We’ve also seen the latter testing up in the mountains above Los Angeles with a previous-generation AMG GT-R along for good measure. We originally figured it was a Lexus because anything competing with cars like the AMG GT-R will be priced in the $200,000 neighborhood, a price point that screams Lexus much more than it does Toyota.
But that was before we saw the Sport Concept today on the Lexus stand at The Quail. This car has Lexus design cues and is identified as a Lexus. The GT Concept looks like a big Toyota GR, especially from the front, and was billed as a Toyota, at least in Goodwood. As we’ve seen during the last few years, any sporting Toyota product will get a GR badge stuck onto it. So will it be the Toyota GR-GT? GR Coupe? GT Coupe? Expect the name to be something along those lines. As for what will be under the long hood, we’ve repeatedly heard the powertrain will be an electrified twin-turbo V-8.
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Americans don’t tend to grasp stealth wealth. The totally excellent Volkswagen Phaeton luxury sedan belly flopped in the U.S., lasting just three years, while it enjoyed a 13-year lifespan in Europe. Speaking of Europe, it’s common for people there to debadge fancy cars. No one needs to know you’re driving an AMG SL63. Hey, it could be an SL43. Here in the U.S., people order M badges off eBay to stick onto their 328s.
All that said, the Chevrolet Corvette ZR1X hybrid will start at a cool $207,395, but it does make 1,250 horsepower. But two bills for not a Lexus, but a Toyota? Rumors have swirled for a while now that Toyota wants Gazoo Racing, i.e. GR, to exist as a standalone brand. We think a $200,000 halo supercar is a great way to launch a brand. Instead of the Toyota GT Concept, it would be the GR GT Concept. Thinking about it, we’ve heard worse names than GR GT. Like ZR1X.
We know that Akio Toyoda, Toyota’s CEO, loves racing, loves endurance racing, and loves the Nürburgring. Meaning we can’t see it as being anything other than a GT3 racer, one that could compete in races like 24 Hours of Le Mans, the Rolex 24 at Daytona, and the Nürburgring 24 Hours. It’s easy to guess the powertrain would be a de-hybridized version of the GT Concept’s twin-turbo V-8.
We’re not entirely sure. A replacement for the LC is indeed a solid guess, though we should point out the LC is built in the Motomachi factory that used to build the LFA supercar. This car could be either an LC or an LFA at this point, though we think an LC is slightly more likely. We simply don’t know, however. After shaking our sources, all we’re getting is that the Lexus Sports Concept was a pure EV at one point, but now it will have an “electrified powertrain.” Might it be the same as the GT/GR Concept? Totally possible. We’ll guess the Toyota GR product will be more of a performance hybrid, whereas the more luxurious Lexus Sport Concept will be a plug-in hybrid. We’ll also guess the Lexus version will produce more power. Again, though, we’re just speculating. Toyota and Lexus have confirmed nothing, but one source did mention all will be revealed by the end of 2025. All three should reach production by early 2027.
When I was just one-year-old and newly walking, I managed to paint a white racing stripe down the side of my father’s Datsun 280Z. It’s been downhill ever since then. Moral of the story? Painting the garage leads to petrolheads. I’ve always loved writing, and I’ve always had strong opinions about cars.
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