New 300HP Toyota Avensis BTCC Racer Revealed in the Flesh [with Video]

The two new Toyota Avensis “Next Generation Touring Cars” (NGTC) received their public debut on Thursday at the Silverstone circuit today, a week before the start of the British Touring Car Championship. The Avensis racers went on display wearing the liveries of privateer teams Dynojet Racing and Hughes Motorsport/Speedworks.

The Avensis race cars will be driven by Frank Wrathall Jr. and Tony Hughes. “The Toyota looks amazing and we are all delighted with it," said Wrathall. "Yes, it is frustrating not to have done more testing, but the first few rounds were always going to be tough for us, so we will just get on with it and do the best, most competitive job that we can."

Both cars have been built by GPR Motorsport on bodyshells from the production line of Toyota's Burnaston plant. Under the bonnet of Wrathall's Avensis lies a 2.0-liter turbocharged Toyota engine developed by X Ctech R that puts out more than 300 horsepower. The team’s engineers hope this unit will prove to be one of the lightest and most powerful engines of the championship.

The 2011 BTCC will enjoy a record 27-car entry, with 10 different manufacturers represented: Audi, BMW, Chevrolet, Ford, Honda, Proton, SEAT, Toyota, Vauxhall and Volkswagen.

Out of the 27 cars, 13 different models will be fighting for honors: Audi A4, BMW 320si, Chevrolet Cruze, Chevrolet Lacetti, Ford Focus, “Global” Ford Focus, Honda Civic, Honda Integra, Proton Gen-2, SEAT Leon, Toyota Avensis, Vauxhall Vectra and VW Golf. Scroll down to see the NGTC-spec Toyota Avensis in action during preliminary testing.

By Dan Mihalascu

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VIDEOS

Dynojet Toyota Avensis BTTC Racer to get 2.0-liter Turbo Engine with 300HP

The latest news to come out of Toyota's BTCC camp is that Dynojet Race Team’s Avensis racer will have under its hood a 2.0-liter turbocharged four-banger adapted from one of the Japanese firm's road-going range. The engine is currently under Toyota GB-funded development at the Northamptonshire laboratories of engineering consultancy X CTech. It will feature a turbocharger as well as a number of internal revisions, which will all help boost output from around 140bhp in road specification to 300bhp or more.

X CTech said it believes the racing car powerplant will be one of the lightest and most powerful engines on the grid of the British Touring Car Championship.

“The Avensis has been designed to the ‘Next Generation Touring Car’ rules, which means we could have opted for the stock TOCA engine, however we were enormously impressed by the plans put forward by X CTech R and felt that this was the right way for us to go, not least because it means our Avensis will be 100 per cent Toyota,” said Dynojet Race Team chief Frank Wrathall Snr.

The Dynojet Race Team’s Avensis BTCC car will be raced this season by Frank Wrathall Jnr. The opening rounds of the British Touring Car Championship are scheduled for 3 April at Brands Hatch, Kent.

Toyota Avensis BTCC a Step Closer to its Racing Debut

The touring car version of Toyota's Avensis sedan has moved a step closer to its competition debut following extensive wind tunnel testing at MIRA's aerodynamic analysis facility. The Avensis NGTC (Next Generation Touring Car) is being constructed by GPR Motorsport and is scheduled to hit the tarmac for the first time in the opening rounds of the Dunlop MSA British Touring Car Championship (BTCC) at Brands Hatch on 3 April.

As you can see in the photo below, the NGTC specification Avensis was joined in the MIRA wind tunnel by a road-going model equipped with a rear wing as the TOCA technical staff wanted to establish a baseline for the car’s aerodynamics.

“We needed to fix a position for the rear wing, based on the aerodynamics of the road car, which gave the levels of downforce we were looking for,” said the championship’s technical director, Peter Riches. “I am pleased to say that this was quickly achieved, and it means that we now have a base line for all cars built to the NGTC regulations and have saved a lot of development time and potential expense for the teams.”

The Japanese firm is not competing in the series with a works team, but does supply the donor cars and body shells to GPR Motorsport. Up until now, two private teams - Dynojet and Speedworks - have taken up the challenge to run in the Avensis, but the company said it hoped that their example will be followed by others "looking to take advantage of the reduced costs of development associated with the new car".

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