Toyota is known for producing exceptionally reliable, well-built, and well-engineered cars and trucks, but they are not often all that exciting. Toyota does make some enthusiast vehicles, they just typically have a few extra letters attached to their name: TRD. (And GR now, of course, but today we’re talking about TRD.) I recently visited the TRD offices in Costa Mesa, California to learn all about the rich history of Toyota Racing Development in the United States, and came away from the experience with some fresh lore that Jalopnik readers love. TRD isn’t the only intriguing part of Toyota’s history in the United States though; we recently shared another great bit of Toyota trivia when we explored how it took over a napalm factory in Long Beach, California to build truck beds and avoid The Chicken Tax.
The first time that the letters TRD adorned anything in the United States, it was actually thanks to a Filipino racing duo who imported TRD parts from the Philippines, totally independent from Toyota. Nowadays the letters TRD adorn the beds of some of the toughest, most capable, and most durable pickup trucks and SUVs on sale today, as well as some special edition cars and aftermarket performance parts. Perhaps less known, the letters TRD also adorn winning NASCAR teams, blisteringly fast Funny Car drag-strip destroyers, and Baja-battling trophy trucks. Here’s how it all started.
The early days of Toyota racing
In the years following the end of WWII, Japan’s automotive industry, as well as most of the country’s other industries, were in bad shape for obvious reasons, but Australia was doing fine. In fact, the Round Australia rally was so successful that the Australian government asked Japanese teams to enter the grueling race, which had drivers race more than 10,000 miles around the entire Australian continent, and despite having no prior racing experience, Toyota accepted the challenge.
The faction of the company that developed Toyota’s racing entry was called Toyota Racing Corner, or TOSCO. True to Toyota’s modern reputation for durability and reliability, its race entrant ended up completing the 19 day-long rally without a single mechanical fault, though it did not win overall. Following this remarkable feat of reliability, Toyota invested in its own Japanese racing series with the help of its TOSCO division, which resulted in the continuation and growth of Toyota’s racing developments.
By the mid-1960s, Japan’s economy had vastly recovered, and Toyota experienced big sales success with its built-for-America Corona in 1965, and the then-new Corolla in 1968. Throughout the 1970s Toyota’s growth continued, as did Toyota’s racing presence.
TOSCO Becomes TRD, but Toyota hesitates to bring it to the U.S.
In 1976, Toyota renamed its racing division, so TOSCO was gone, and Toyota Racing Development was born. In the beginning, TRD started selling performance parts to Japanese consumers only, then later it expanded into other Asian markets including the Philippines. This was all happening concurrently with the oil crisis when America was instituting stricter emissions and safety regulations, so Toyota chose not to export these TRD performance parts to the United States. Luckily, a Filipino Toyota racing duo that consisted of Joel and Joji Luz decided to start importing TRD parts from the Philippines into the United States totally independent from Toyota, and formed TRD USA.
TRD USA operated out of a facility in sunny Costa Mesa, California, as a sort of speed shop for Toyotas, and though it was not formally affiliated with Toyota Motors North America just yet, it was conveniently located quite close to the Toyota Motor Sales USA office. As the Luz brothers gradually expanded TRD USA’s presence to the point that the parts were available in most Toyota dealerships across the country, Toyota Motor Sales USA took note of America’s warm reception to its TRD performance parts, and eventually purchased TRD USA from the Luzes in the early 1980s.
The rest is history
Once Toyota took over TRD and began participating in American racing series, TRD gained more and more visibility as a performance sub-brand, thus strengthening its reputation. A big factor in this expanded visibility was one of the most notable names in racing in the 1990s: Ivan “Ironman” Stewart, and his remarkable solo wins at the legendary Baja 1000, racing in the iconic yellow, orange, and red Toyota desert race truck developed by TRD. From that fame, Ivan Stewart became the focus of the legendary arcade racing game called “Super Off-Road,” which was the most popular arcade game in the world in 1989 (and still is a Jalopnik favorite). It featured that iconic TRD truck, which raced its way into the hearts of millions of young gamers. Following that, Ivan Stewart won the Baja 500, the Baja 1000, and the MINT 400 all in the same year in 1993, making Toyota the first manufacturer to win all three races in a single season.
As TRD gained more traction in the United States, it continued expanding into uncharted territory, as the faction responsible for Toyota becoming the first import car to enter the blue blooded American sport of NASCAR in 2000. Just two years after that, TRD facilitated Toyota’s debut in the hyper-specialized world of NHRA Funny Car drag racing.
The TRD office in Costa Mesa is still home to most of Toyota’s NASCAR program, and some production parts too
Today, TRD USA still operates out of its Costa Mesa, California office, and that’s where the majority of its NASCAR research and development occurs. The TRD Costa Mesa facility produces about 450 engines per year, with about 400 of those being used for NASCAR racing, while others are used for midget car racing, drag racing, and other types of racing that TRD supports.
Funny enough, alongside the pushrod NASCAR V8s, TRD Costa Mesa also houses much of Toyota’s hydrogen alternative fuels operations. This includes development of ever-more efficient hydrogen generators that fit into the bed of a Tundra and are driven to events to provide zero emission power to TRD operations. When I visited the facility on National Taco Day, one of those hydrogen generators provided power for a taco truck so we could celebrate properly.
Logan K. Carter/ Jalopnik
And yes, TRD Costa Mesa also produces some specialized components for production TRD models. This facility designed and now produces the upper control arms for all TRD Pro Tacomas, Tundras, and 4Runners on the road, and it’s even where TRD developed a proprietary coating for those components using technology that Toyota Motors North America had never used before. Those components are rigorously tested, for upwards of 100 times as long as the industry standard, applying TRD’s 46 years of expertise and excellence to components on road cars. If you’re wondering why Toyotas, especially the TRD Pro models, hold their value so well over the course of hundreds of thousands of miles, know that it’s for good reason.
