You May Love These Carmakers, But Did You Know About The Power-packed Cars Their Skunkworks Divisions Make?

You must be living under a rock, a pretty big one at that, if you don't know what M, AMG and RS are. We’re pretty sure that every enthusiast in the country is well versed with cars produced by the in-house performance departments of BMW, Mercedes-Benz and Audi. But what about other manufacturers and their unsung skunkworks departments? Toyota’s got TRD, Nissan has Nismo, while Volvo calls it Polestar. Here’s a closer look at them as well as other lesser known performance divisions.

Toyota - TRD

Toyota Racing Development (TRD) has been in the picture for a long time and is responsible for gems such as the widebody TRD Supra 3000GT. TRD’s Japan wing focuses on Japanese motorsports while its US division competes in Nascar and other events. Meanwhile, Toyota Motorsport GmbH, which took care of Toyota's F1 department, now develops racecars for the World Endurance Championship (WEC). Gazoo Racing, on the other hand, runs Toyota’s World Rally Championship team and is currently the sole source of fast and focussed Toyotas. Confusing, right? What you should understand from all of this is that there’s more to Toyota than Corollas and boring hybrids.

Nissan - Nismo

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Short for Nissan Motorsport International Limited, Nismo is the in-house skunkworks and motorsport wing of Nissan. Nismo is more popular for their tuning kits, although it has also churned out legendary cars in the past like the R33 Skyline Nismo 400R and the R390 race car. Nismo is very picky when it comes to cars that carry its badge and in that respect, cars like the GTR, 370Z, Juke and a couple of others are lucky enough. And a Nismo badged Skyline, Silvia or the R35 GTR, be it from any year, means trouble. 

Volvo - Polestar

Polestar is what AMG is to Mercedes-Benz. The in-house tuning department of the Swedish carmaker also takes care of its motorsport activities. Polestar started life as Flash Engineering, which was a privateer racing team that participated in the Swedish Touring Car Championship (STCC) with the Volvo 850 Super Touring. In 2005, it was renamed Polestar and in 2009, the skunkworks department started collaborating with Volvo.The S60 and the V60 Polestar were the first cars to be produced by the joint venture. Currently, Polestar is owned by Volvo and is positioned as an independent entity that builds high performance electric models such as the Polestar 1.

Ford Performance

Ford Performance is the company behind sinister Fords such as the GT as well as RS- and ST-badged cars. Rallye Sport and its RS logo translates to nothing but fast Fords. Responsible for some heroic old-school cars like the Group B RS 200, Sierra RS Cosworth, Escort RS Cosworth, RS badged cars have a cult fan following around the world. Explosive Cosworth powerplants backed by Ford’s impeccable chassis tuning meant that the early RS cars were a match made in heaven. Fast forward to today, the RS name lives on in the Focus RS while other models from Ford Performance include the Mustang GT350 (and all its powerful cousins), Focus ST, Fiesta ST, and the F150 Raptor, among others.

Jaguar Land Rover - SVO

The British duo Jaguar Land Rover, too, has a dedicated bunch of folks with the sole aim of making their already fast cars go bonkers. The SVR-badged cars from JLR are what we are on about. The SVO division is not just limited to fast cars as they also make tailor-made vehicles from both brands under the SV Premium Palette division. Back to the SVR badge which was first affixed to the Range Rover Sport SVR followed by the Jaguar F-Type SVR. All SVR badged cars follow the principle of more power, better and lighter underpinnings and equally impressive aesthetic additions to complete the package. Result of combining all these with a couple of engineers are cars like the XE SV Project 8, which has four doors and packs the most powerful engine on any Jaguar. 

Lexus - F

Lexus’ F is a relatively new division which was established in the year 2006 to go up against the well entrenched AMG, M and RS divisions of ze Germans. Lexus’ performance testing ground, the Fuji Speedway, is the inspiration behind the F line.The 5.0-litre V8-powered M3-rivalling IS F was the first model to flaunt the badge in 2007. But it was the LFA in 2009 that put the marque on the chart. The LFA was basically Toyota flexing its muscles, showing the Germans and a couple of pesky Italians how it’s done. The howling V10-powered LFA was ahead of its time and considered as one of the best cars to come out of Japan. Other F badged models include the RC F, GS F and the LC 500 (although it lacks the F badge). 

Some other in-house performance divisions are Subaru’s STi (Subaru Tecnica International) Mazda Speed, Fiat’s Abarth, Seat’s Cupra, Hyundai's N, Renault Sport and Mini’s John Cooper Works. We’ll be getting down to these special ops wings over the span of the next few weeks.