MOORESVILLE, N.C. — A historic brick building sits in the heart of Mooresville. At first glance, it does not appear to be particularly special, as it resembles a nearby antique mall. However, the large Toyota haulers outside indicate it could be something quite extraordinary.
Videos by FanBuzz
This isn't any old brick building; it's the Toyota GR Garage. This is the playground where a small group of mechanics and engineers build some really cool projects.
They turn GR86 and GR Corolla street cars into race cars for multiple series.
Every car in the GR Cup spec series has rolled through this specialty shop before heading to Circuit of the Americas, Indianapolis Motor Speedway, and other road courses on the 14-race schedule.
These are the cars driven by championship contenders and guests alike. This includes some high-profile drivers such as Keanu Reeves, Dude Perfect's Cody Jones, and Rutledge Wood.
"This whole thing is an old mill complex," Mark Chambers, Senior Technical Manager, Customer Racing for TRD, tells FanBuzz during a mid-afternoon tour. "There's like 1.1 million square feet of mill complex here. (A friend) said, 'Hey, if you look at this old building back over here on the backside, there's nothing in it, that could be a cool place.'
"So we came and looked at this and literally there was nothing in here except windows, and that was it. There were still birds flying around, bats flying around. We still get the occasional bat flying around."
Photo credit: FanBuzz
The bats, birds, and graffiti did not stick around for long. Toyota began working on the building in 2022. They installed an HVAC system, new walls, windows, an electrical system, and everything else required for a top-of-the-line custom shop.
Now, the GR Garage consists of two buildings. The first floor of one building houses multiple bays where the team tears apart stock cars and rebuilds them for the Toyota GR Cup and other racing purposes. The second floor holds the Toyota Performance Center where drivers train, rehab, and gain an important education.
This building also features dyno equipment, which the GR Garage team can use to ensure that every purpose-built race car has almost an identical amount of horsepower. It has a dedicated fabrication shop where the team can make specialty parts and experiment during builds.
The other building holds an almost overwhelming amount of fenders, seats, and miscellaneous parts taken off throughout the process. Every piece has a label, which corresponds to the stock car. The team wants to ensure that every part goes back to each car.
This serves as a testament to the inventory system that the GR Garage team built with the help of coworkers in California.
They know the location of every part, whether it's on a cart awaiting installation or on a shelf in storage. This is crucial in the rare instance that GR Garage has to send a replacement gearbox to a GR Cup racer in the United States or in Australia.
This building holds dozens of sets of tires, cases of oil, and other fluids for each specific race track. As Chambers explains, every person — or team — who purchases a car from the GR Garage gets a set of tires, a case of oil, and a set of fluids for their first change.
This secondary building also holds dozens of cars. Some sit ready for the race track. Others await the teardown process. Another group of cars awaits the trip to Texas for another special purpose.
Photo credit: FanBuzz
"We're building 10 what's called Academy cars," Chambers explains. "It's something we're doing for TMNA — Toyota Motor North America. These will end up going to Eagles Canyon to be used for some dealer training.
"So the one thing we want to do is start getting dealers more attuned to selling a more sports car-related car. So working with them, Eagles Canyon, which is a place in Texas that we do a lot of work with."
Unlike the GR Cup cars, the Academy cars do not have rear wings, splitters, or sequential transmissions. They have the automatic transmission, as well as two seats for a driver and coach. The only major additions are a roll cage, a hood vent, some aftermarket parts to aid with oil cooling, and other crucial safety devices.
Toyota has the footprint in the heart of racing country, but how does the magic happen?
The journey from stock GR86 to race car features several steps spread across roughly 200 man hours of work. The team has to tear each car down, send it to another shop for some extra work, and then build it back up until it is race ready.
"We take a stock GR86, it comes in here, we tear it down to where it's just a bare chassis with nothing on it," Chambers says. "We send it to Joe Gibbs Racing — one of our partners —they install an FIA-approved roll cage, also install a fuel cell, something to hold the fuel cell, a couple of those small minor modifications.
Photo credit: FanBuzz
"That comes back to us and from there, then we build up with a few more racing specific parts into what we call our GR Cup car. The biggest things we do to it other than the roll cage is — we don't do anything to the engine — we do add some extra cooling for oil cooling.
"But the big thing we do here is we put a six speed sequential gearbox in it. The factory manual comes out — it's called a Sadev box out of France. It's a six speed sequential. It goes into it. Alcon brakes front and rear, four piston front, two piston rear."
The work continues with a Bosch electrical system, a 22-gallon fuel cell, a rear wing, a front splitter, Rotiform wheels, Continental tires, new seat belts, window nets, fire system, JRI shocks, and a wiring harness from DCE Inc.
As Chambers jokes, the wing and the splitter don't really do much for the car, but they both look really cool. The drivers and teams like these touches.
"We try to work with local companies when we are doing stuff to support (them)," Chambers says. "So Sadev, even though they're a France company, they actually have an office here in Mooresville. Alcon is right down the street over here. And then we also worked with a company called JRI Shocks, which is run by a guy named Jeff Ryan.
"If anyone knows anything about racing, Jeff's been around forever, he's been in F1, IndyCar, Jeff actually started Penske Racing Shocks. So now he has Jeff Ryan Incorporated. We do all of our struts and shocks through him. Then our wiring, which is a custom wiring harness in it as well, which is done by a company called DCE electronics here in Mooresville."
Photo credit: FanBuzz
Each GR86 rolls out of the facility with a base setup. Teams can then make some tweaks within the GR Cup rules, but Chambers says that many drivers just move forward as is while finding success.
The GR Cup team has the goal of completing 100 GR86 builds before the end of the year. They have built 80 so far. Fifteen of the remaining 20 will become race cars. The remaining five will become "body and whites," which are similar to a backup car in NASCAR.
"So body and white is basically just a chassis with nothing on it," Chambers says.
"So if a team really crunches up a car bad, but they crunch it up to where they've bent the frame in the right-hand corner, but everything else is okay, they can take a body and white, take all that stuff off that car, put it on the body and white and basically have a new race car."
Once these race cars are complete, the GR Garage does not simply say, "Good luck." No, this team remains involved throughout the seven-weekend GR Cup season.
They take haulers to each event and set up a kiosk. Team members can then order parts on their phone or computer and then pick them up at the hauler during the race weekend.
"We sell the car, we don't fix it for you, but if you damage something, whatever, then we carry every part on the car in these two haulers and those go to all of our events," Chambers says.
"Which has worked out. I think that's one of the things that —especially in light of like the latest tariff stuff going on — like you can always come to us and get parts. We've always got parts and stuff."
Sometimes, if an emergency arises, the team will jump in and help repair the car before the next on-track session. It's not the standard operating procedure.
Chambers estimates that the team can complete two GR86 cars each week. Although the team has scaled back to one car per week at times while adding the three-cylinder-powered GR Corolla race car into the mix.
Photo credit: FanBuzz
The GR Garage has built four of these custom GR Corollas so far, which made their way to the TC America series.
The goal is to produce 10 of these GR Corollas while continuing to compete against entries from Acura, Hyundai, and other manufacturers.
Unlike the GR86, the GR Corolla does not have a custom sequential shifter. It actually utilizes the new eight-speed automatic transmission that Toyota's fleet of racing drivers put through the paces on tracks all around the world. Every test proved that this transmission is bulletproof, so the GR Garage doesn't have any reason to replace it.
The interior of the GR Corolla actually features fewer changes than the GR86. The steering wheel changes as Toyota aims to add in some extra functions, but the automatic shift lever remains in the center of the cockpit. The team just builds a carbon fiber enclosure to house it.
The knob that controls the front and rear split differential also stays in the cockpit, but it goes into a fixed position due to TC America rules. As Chambers explains, at this point, "it just looks cool."
Photo credit: FanBuzz
The team in Mooresville continues to refine the build process while adapting to an entirely different style of race car, one that produces upwards of 500 horsepower once it leaves the GR Garage.
As they learn more about the GR Corolla and its unique design, they will only increase the speed at which they can complete these projects. After all, they have spent entire careers building race cars. The models have only changed over the years.
"Most all the guys that work over there on these, they've all been in NASCAR for probably 20, 30 years," Chambers says. "And so they're used to just building cars like NASCAR guys do.
"So it's just a process they kind of had down and made it easy for them. So, that's where it really worked out well, kind of having that knowledge and background."
For now, the team at the GR Garage will turn the attention back to the GR86 so they can meet their target number by the end of the year. They will also celebrate the opportunity to spend each day in one of the most interesting work environments in the country.
