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When Akio Toyoda, the president of Toyota Motor Corporation, wanted to demonstrate to Japanese customers that hydrogen power is safe, he decided to convert a Corolla to use H2 in an internal combustion engine and then entered the car in an endurance racing series. He was even one of the drivers. [credit: Toyota ]
In late May, a special Toyota Corolla entered the track at Fuji Speedway in Japan to take part in a 24-hour race. Unlike the other cars in the race, this one was hydrogen-powered. But it didn’t use a fuel cell like the Mirai sedan; instead, this car’s three-cylinder engine was converted to burn the gas instead of burning gas(oline). The driver line-up for the car showed why. Among the racers listed was a “Morizo,” better known to the world as Akio Toyoda, Toyota Motor Company’s president.
No pressure, then.
“The reason for competing in a 24-hour endurance race is that simply lasting three or five hours is not enough. You have to have done the preparation to last for 24 hours,” Toyoda said in the weeks before the race. There’s no doubt about it—completing a 24-hour race is no easy thing, and the crucible of racing will often reveal problems that engineers don’t encounter on the test bench.
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