I remember reading the results of a study about the relative fan bases of the various Formula 1 teams…. Ferrari came out as the world’s most popular team, no surprise there at all… and at the bottom with the least number of devoted fans? Toyota. Somehow the company hadn’t managed to create a strong following in the world’s number one form of motorsports.

Now this seems a little out-of-sync with my understanding of true Toyota aficionados… there are many international communities of people who are seriously into their Toyotas, especially those devoted to their AE86s and Supras. These are probably some of the most dedicated, brand loyal car owners anywhere…. It doesn’t seem to me that Toyota has necessarily connected these groups with their modern F1, NASCAR and NHRA programs thought does it?

I suppose this isn’t really a discussion worth having though, as Speedhunters is more focused on the enthusiast side of the Toyota brand anyway…. and I’m happy to announce that February will be entirely devoted to exploring these scenes. For the coming month, we’ll be rounding up as many cool Toyotas, Lexus and Scions that we can coerce in front of our cameras. We’ll also endeavour to give as wide an overview of the various Toyota tuning scenes, styles, subcultures, milestones and motorsports acheivements as possible.

This can be anything from Grip tuned AE86s…..

….to a look at Toyota Team Europe’s recent GT and Prototype exploits…..

Mike Garrett is also planning to return to the Toyota History Garage for a detailed look at the exhibitions on display….

…..We’ll also divide and catalogue the many Toyota-centric Japanese subcultures from VIP Style to Drifting…. February is looking to be an exciting month on Speedhunters.

BTW if you have a Toyota based site or car you think we should look at please drop us a line. Those of you who got in contact for Mazda month really helped us to properly reflect these scenes and we hope again to deepen our Toyota based connections worldwide… BTW it just so happens that we have a bit of a Toyota maniac on the editorial team, Antonio Alvendia, and he is always on the look out for new Toyota friends :>… so don’t be shy and drop us a line!

Righto… here we go…..

:R