The TS020 GT-One Race Car was built and raced by Toyota, which later replaced the car with a hybrid race car, the TS030 in 2012. Pictured at the right are two examples of the TS020 from the 1999 running of the 24 Hours of Le Mans. In this event, the #1 and #2 cars failed to finish, placing 35th and 30th overall, while the #3 car finished in second place overall and first in class.
Loophole Exploitations
In 1997, both the Mercedes-Benz CLK GTR and the Porsche 911 GT1 were dominant cars in their class that exploited a certain loophole in the rules. Each car was a custom-built supercar, and only a handful of production cars were built to homologate them. Toyota Team Europe realized that they would actually only need to build a single production car in order to meet homologation requirements; since this car would never be sold to a customer, typical driver luxuries could be left out, saving materials, weight, and design time.
Toyota also learned about another loophole that Mercedes-Benz had exploited. All GT-class cars were required to have storage space capable of holding a standard-size suitcase in order for the car to be considered not only production-based, but usable by the public. Mercedes exploited this by putting a small cubby hole into an unused area underneath the rear bodywork, although it was not as easy to access as a normal trunk. Toyota, in their interpretation of the rules, were able to convince ACO officials that the car's fuel tank, normally empty when the car is scrutineered before the race, qualified as trunk space since its shape would have enough room theoretically hold a suitcase.
TS020 Road Car
Toyota ended up producing two road cars, both of which were painted red and given a minimalist interior. Today, one is held by a museum in Japan and the other stays in the Toyota motorsports headquarters.