For Björn Waldegård or Lars-Erik Torph read Seth Quintero. And for Supra, read GR Corolla Rally RC2.
Toyota is back Stateside with a factory rally car once more.
The last time the Japanese manufacturer sent a works effort to an American stage rally was the 1987 Olympus, when Waldegård and Torph were each handed a Supra and as many rear tires as they needed to get down the baking Washington gravel roads, 39 summers ago.
While Quintero’s Toyota Gazoo Racing-engineered Corolla is tailor-made for stage, the Supra wasn’t.
The previous fall, Toyota Team Europe had been present for the Group B finale, as the 1986 Olympus brought the curtain down on arguably the World Rally Championship’s most spectacular, dramatic and controversial homologation cycles.
The Celica Twin Cam Turbo was a purpose-built Group B car. But that purpose was, largely, winning in Africa. It delivered, with success on both the Safari and Ivory Coast. But in the wet forests at the end of an era, the car’s lack of a front differential was telling. It was no match for the Group B supercars which sat around it.
Torph and Waldegård finished a distant fourth and fifth respectively.
The Celicas were flown to Japan and dismantled as quickly as Toyota’s plans for its four-wheel drive 700bhp 22D. That car was destined for Group S, the category set to follow Group B. When both classes were canned in favour of the production-based Group A, Toyota was left scratching its head.
The Supra was pressed into action. In naturally aspirated form, it’s three-liter straight six engine could offer just short of 300bhp. With a turbocharger bolted to the side for 1988, the power climbed to 400bhp and the FIA quietly ignored its own 300bhp Group A limit.
The Group A Supra wasn't one of Toyota's greatest rally machines
Whether in 300 or 400bhp trim, the overweight and unwieldy Supra was always going to struggle. And that was very much the case when the two Cologne-registered cars took the start in Seattle in June, 1987.
Even around the asphalt, spectator-pleasing stages in Seattle’s Golden Gardens and south of the city in Tacoma, the Supra gave best to Lancia’s Delta HF 4WD.
Once again, Waldegård and Torph were neck and neck as they shredded Pirellis and traded times in the top-10’s middle order. Eventually Torph’s engine let go and Waldegård brought his Supra home sixth, 18 minutes down after 44 stages and 539 competitive kilometres (334 miles).
And that was that. Toyota’s early Group A answer never returned to America and the Celicas and Corollas which followed stayed away. Until now.
Until Missouri and this week’s second round of the 2026 ARA National Championship.
Welcome back, Toyota.
