Toyota toughens up: Fortuner GR Sport revealed, hardcore HiLux to follow in October - reports

Toyota's HiLux family is being given the toughen-up treatment, with the unveiling of the Fortuner GR Sport and a hardcore HiLux to reportedly follow in October.

Revealed for the Indonesian market, but expected to land wherever the Fortuner is sold, this GR Sport variant doesn't mess with the key underpinnings of the regular Fortuner, which means – in that marker – a choice of petrol or diesel engines and two- or four-wheel drive.

What you do get, though, is a far meaner exterior package, with a new dark-chrome grille, front and rear bumpers, new alloys and GR badging wherever you look.

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Inside, it's a blacked out theme with leather trim, and more GR badging, but that's about as far as this makeover goes.

We do know that where the Fortuner goes, the HiLux follows, and reports out of Japan pointing to the brand's ever-popular ute getting a similar makeover in October.

For that model, though, there's talk of true mechanical changes, with the inclusion off GR Sport tuned suspension, which should improve its on-tarmac handling.

Elsewhere, it's appearance updates for HiLux GR Sport, with a new and matt-grey-framed front grille, bespoke 18-inch alloys, paddle shifters, beefier guards, a shark-fin antenna and a ton of GR Sport branding inside and out.

The GR Sport is expected to be an entree to a full-fat GR HiLux, a nameplate that has already been trademarked in Australia, and that model is expected to up the grunt considerably.

Asked whether a new GR HiLux would need to produce more power to be worthy of the badge, Toyota Australia's General Manager of Product Planning and Development, Rod Ferguson, replied "that would be a fair assumption."

"HiLux is a very important model to us, and clearly we want to keep improving and doing things to the HiLux, but we haven’t gotten anything else to announce for HiLux," he says.

"Clearly it’s our ambition to offer more product variations, and stretch that product in as many different directions as we can, that’s clearly our ambition."

The GR HiLux is widely tipped to adopt the LC300's new twin-turbo-diesel V6, which would generate a whopping 700Nm of torque, making it the most powerful diesel dual-cab in Australia.