Toyota Australia and Walkinshaw Group have said they’re open to expanding their current partnership to potentially produce more showroom models – such as potentially a Ford Ranger Raptor rival – should the opportunity arise.
The Toyota GR Supra will make its race debut at the opening round of the 2026 Repco Supercars Championship at Sydney Motorsport Park this weekend, with the Walkinshaw team having switched to Toyota after winning last year’s title in the Ford Mustang.
Yet the partnership could extend beyond the track and potentially give Toyota access to local engineering resources to produce special-edition sports cars, as well as the chance to build a flagship HiLux as a bona fide Ford Ranger Raptor and Nissan Navara Pro-4X Warrior rival.
One of Australia’s largest automotive employers, the flourishing Walkinshaw Group – which evolved out of Holden Special Vehicles (HSV) – has already worked on a variety of projects for multiple manufacturers beyond its highly visible Supercars operation.
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This includes developing road-going models for Volkswagen Australia and running successful race programs, including the Ford Ranger Raptor’s three-peat in the production class of the arduous Finke Desert Race.
At its newly expanded facilities in Clayton, Melbourne, Walkinshaw also remanufactures the Chevrolet Silverado, Ram 1500/2500/3500 and Toyota Tundra full-size pickups to right-hand drive for Australian showrooms for each respective automaker.
Speaking at the 2026 season launch of the Toyota Gazoo Racing Supercars Supra at Sydney Motorsport Park, Toyota Australia sales and marketing boss John Pappas and Walkinshaw co-owner Ryan Walkinshaw sang from the same songbook.
“Toyota are a major partner of the Walkinshaw Automotive Group and obviously we’ve got a successful program going on with the Tundra,” the team boss said.
“Obviously we’re always talking with all of our manufacturing partners about other opportunities. We propose different ideas to them; they propose different ideas to us – we’re always exploring these kinds of things.
“But at the moment our focus is ensuring that the Tundra program is a huge success here in Australia, and after that, if there’s other exciting products that may or not exist in the future as a partnership between our two brands, we’ll let you know.”
John Pappas, who moved from running the local Lexus operation to become Toyota Australia’s sales and marketing vice president late last year, said the opportunity is there but will have to wait as the team pushes its move into Supercars.
“We’ve already had a really good relationship and expanding into Supercars with this GR Supra, so yeah, we will continue to build,” said Mr Pappas.
“Our focus right now is exactly on those two things: it’s about selling more Tundras and getting that brand expanded as a model line and trying to learn through the GR Supra.”
Toyota Australia introduced a new-generation HiLux in late 2025, with a GR Sport range-topper, which was offered previously, not yet confirmed for the new lineup.
While the Ranger Raptor was developed by Ford Australia, Walkinshaw was previously tapped for an upgraded 2020 Volkswagen Amarok ‘W580’, with the latest version, the Amarok W600, scheduled to go on sale here this year.
Walkinshaw isn’t the only Australian firm in this space.
Premcar developed the Nissan Patrol Warrior in 2023 – a beefed-up Patrol with greater off-road capability – which led to a Warrior version of the Navara.
Melbourne-based Premcar has also worked on the suspension tune of the new Nissan Navara lineup, with Nissan Australia confirming it will use the Melbourne-based firm to develop a Warrior version of the next Y63 Patrol, due here late this year.
