Lexus expects only 250 to 300 GR GT and GT3 cars in its first U.S. year

DeJuan Ross, who runs the Lexus Division at Toyota Motor North America, expects between 250 and 300 GR GT and GT3 cars to reach American buyers nationwide in the first year of sales. Select Lexus dealers will start selling them toward the end of 2027, and only about 100 of the brand’s 246 U.S. dealers have been picked as retail hubs. The numbers are tiny for a luxury marque that sold roughly 882,000 cars worldwide last year.

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Ross’s forecast and the 100-dealer network

Ross gave the volume estimate to Automotive News, and Autoblog’s summary of that interview says he expects 250 to 300 units nationwide in the first year. His title is group vice president and general manager of the Lexus Division, so the figure comes from the executive responsible for the brand’s U.S. dealer relationships. The estimate covers the GR GT road car and the GT3 together, which matters because the GT3 is a race car and the count therefore mixes road and competition machines.

The sales network is deliberately narrow. About 100 dealers will serve as retail hubs, and their staff were trained overseas, according to the same report. The original Automotive News dealer preview could not be opened for this article, so these details follow Autoblog. Spread across about 100 stores, a pool of 250 to 300 cars works out to two or three per hub, assuming an even split, which Lexus has not said it will use.

Set against the rest of the brand, the forecast is almost invisible. Lexus sold about 882,000 cars worldwide in 2025, a 4 percent increase over 2024, and Autoblog says it is redirecting 35,000 cars from other markets to American dealers because supply has fallen short of demand. Even the top of Ross’s range, 300 cars, is about 0.03 percent of last year’s global volume, and less than one percent of that single 35,000-car shipment. The GR GT is a halo product, built to change how buyers see the showroom rather than to move units.

The GR GT and its GT3 race sibling

Toyota is developing the GR GT, and Autoblog’s report says select Lexus dealerships will sell it. The same coverage says that the road car pairs a 4.0-liter twin-turbo V8 with an electric motor for a preliminary 641 horsepower and 627 pound-feet of torque, sent to the rear wheels through an eight-speed transaxle. Toyota says those figures, along with top speed and weight, could change before production, and the car is being developed in parallel with the GT3 race car so that lessons carry over.

A harder version is already being tested. Autoblog’s spy photos from the Nurburgring show a prototype with a larger front splitter, new dive planes and a top-hung rear wing, which may be badged GR GT RS and appears aimed at the Porsche 911 GT3 RS. Whether that car becomes a separate model or an option package is unclear, and nothing in the coverage says how it would count against the 250 to 300 units.

The calendar is also long, and the Automotive News report sets the timeline. Sales begin toward the end of 2027, more than a year from now, which means buyers are being asked to commit to a car whose horsepower, weight and top speed Toyota still calls preliminary. Autoblog’s coverage of the production car, expected next year, puts its top speed over 199 mph, but none of those figures is final until the first deliveries arrive.

Scarcity as strategy

Toyota has been open that rarity is the point. Andrew Gilleland, the company’s senior vice president of automotive operations, told The Drive that 200 to 250 GR GTs are earmarked for the United States, and Autoblog’s report on the American allocation says he described the shortage as deliberate, with the company intending to fall short of demand by design. The aim, he indicated, is to put cars with owners who will drive them rather than flippers hoping to cash out.

Demand is not in doubt. More than 150 prospective buyers met with Toyota at The Quail during Monterey Car Week to specify cars even though orders had not formally opened, and Autoblog puts the price north of $225,000. The two allocation figures, 200 to 250 from Toyota and 250 to 300 from Ross, come from different executives and different reports, and the coverage does not reconcile them. One plausible reading is that they count different things, but no source says so.

The Lexus plan also sits within a larger shift. Ross described the main strategy as reinvesting in the core lineup and refreshing it more often, and the report says the ultra-luxury Century brand is expected in the U.S. in 2028 with a much smaller dealer list than the GR GT group. Autoblog’s coverage of the Century SUV puts its Japanese price at 27 million yen, or more than $170,000.

For enthusiasts, the arithmetic is the story. With about 100 hub dealers, a launch window at the end of 2027 and no more than 300 cars in the first year, the people who end up with a Lexus GR GT will mostly be those already on a dealer’s list, and everyone else will be reading about it.

This article was produced with the assistance of AI and reviewed by Morning Overview editors prior to publication.

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