On January 9th, SUPER GT’s brand new GT300 class machine for the 2009 season, “COROLLA Axio apr GT,” was unveiled at the Tokyo Auto Salon. The developer of the new machine, apr, has competed in SUPER GT/JGTC with MR-S and MR2 and won driver’s title three times in the past. They scored 1 win with MR-S last season. The team with outstanding record chose Corolla Axio as their machine to compete in the ’09 season.

At the presentation held at Toyota booth, Team manager/chief engineer Hiroto Kaneso who takes the helm of apr explained the reason for picking a popular road car as their based vehicle. “My team has been using Corolla on the street, and, in spite of having a manual transmission, I often have taken the wheel also. I always thought that the car has everything in a pack: good balance, maneuverability, drivability, etc. From there, I thought ‘Would we be able to make a racing car out of it?’”

He described the key points of the development as, “Utilize its characteristics and not to spoil them. Only a few people notice it, but the angle of Axio