When you’re the number-one automaker in the Philippines and you’re celebrating your 35th anniversary, nothing less than the best will do. In the case of Toyota Motor Philippines (TMP), it’s kicking off over three decades of local operations with the Toyota GAZOO Racing Festival, which will be held on Aug. 23 to 24, 2023 at the Quirino Grandstand in Manila. GAZOO Racing (GR) is the Japanese automaker’s motorsports division, producing not only championship-winning racing cars, but also high-perfor

Disclosure: Honda Cars Philippines Inc. kindly lent me a 2023 Honda Civic Type R FL5 for nine days. It arrived with a full tank of fuel and loaded RFID cards. AutoFun Philippines paid for additional fuel, toll, and a carwash. The word “legend” gets thrown around an awful lot nowadays. Social media is awash with so-called legends, supposedly because they achieved some incredible metric online (a gazillion followers/subscribers) or for some insane (and often extremely dangerous) act. A little etym

When we reported on Toyota’s supposed plan to revive the MR-S sports car, you folks couldn’t get enough of it. Whether it was the baby-Lamborghini Huracan looks rendered by Japanese publication BestCarWeb or the promise of yet another 21st-century Toyota sports car, the idea of a nippy, mid-engine two-door clearly captured your imagination. Throughout our racing careers, both AutoFun Philippines content head Mikko David and I have been able to take the Toyota MR-S convertible to its limits on th

If you’re one of the people who miss the little Toyota MR-S, a revival may be in the works. A report from Japanese publication BestCarWeb said Toyota is teaming up with Daihatsu and Suzuki to develop a mid-engined sports car that may be launched in 2025. All three brands will likely have their own versions. The MR-S successor will likely use the same Toyota New Global Architecture platform on the Toyota GR Yaris, with the front end reportedly using the GR Yaris’ suspension. Meanwhile, Daihatsu a

Motorsports is the last place you would expect to hear about sustainability. Perhaps even less so at endurance races, where cars at full belt for up to 25 hours straight, testing both man and machine through day and night. But in a December 2022 press statement, Toyota Motor Corporation said it would field two cars at the 25-hour IDEMITSU 1500 SUPER ENDURANCE 2022 that aims to break the mold. The Japanese carmaker said it would field a Toyota GR Corolla powered by hydrogen and a Toyota GR86 that

Mazda will be propelling a few unused SUVs starting 2022, and fair final week the Mazda CX-50 begun generation in North America. Presently, Japanese media have taken a shot and rendered the Mazda CX-80, an up and coming show that’s a small bit more important to us. One of the five new SUVs announced – alongside the CX-50, CX-60, CX-70, and CX-90 – the CX-80 will be sold in Japan and Europe, which gives it a good chance of appearing here, considering some of our Mazda models are imported from Jap