Toyota brings Nurburgring closer to home

TOKYO — Toyota has opened a proving ground outside Toyota City that includes a "mini-Nürburgring" track where it hopes to pursue its goal of making its vehicles more fun to drive.

The sprawling ¥300 billion ($2.68 billion) test course covers 2.5 square miles of wooded hills, mimicking the famed German race circuit where President Akio Toyoda cut his teeth as a competitive driver and Toyota Motor Corp. continues to race and test its cars.

"Based on long experience of the Nürburgring Nordschleife, which is famous throughout the world for its grueling driving conditions," the company said in a release, "Toyota has designed an exacting test course that takes advantage of local topography and features a roughly 75-meter change in elevation between its highest and lowest points, as well as a wide range of curves and corners."

The 3.3-mile road course opened last week as the first section of a technical center that will eventually encompass a high-speed test track and specialized courses replicating roads from around the world. It will also include new centers for vehicle development.

Toyota Technical Center Shimoyama will employ 3,300 people when it is fully operational in 2023. Japan's top-selling automaker said it needs a bigger proving ground closer to its global headquarters and r&d center in Toyota City, near Nagoya in central Japan.

The new site is about 30 minutes away.

In a statement about the new center, Toyoda cited his company's experience at Nürburgring and in the so-called Five Continent Drive Project — a multiyear, round-the-world test drive — as inspiration for the facility.

"With the aim of making ever-better cars, we have continued to make various efforts in 'feeling the road' and 'conversing with cars' through driving tests around the world," he said in the statement. "With the replication of severe driving conditions at the new test course, we intend to thoroughly hone every one of our models and develop the types of cars that epitomize the true joy of driving."