Following the end of the Group C era around 1994, Toyota decided to alter its plans in sports car racing by moving to the production-based GT classes for 1995. Toyota decided to approach this in two ways by using two different styles of car for competition. The first was a heavily modified Toyota Supra, referred to as the Supra LM, which would use a turbocharged 3S-GT (503E) inline-4. The second entry was a custom built car designed specifically to be a racing car, yet required a small number of production cars for sale in order to meet homologation regulations. This car was modified heavily from the Toyota MR2, and became known as the SARD MC8-R. The MC8-R would use a custom built Toyota turbocharged V8. While the Supra performed admirably in 1995, the MC8-R would appear superior for 1996. With development of high powered supercars for the GT classes at the time, Toyota decided that a car similar to the MC8-R, which was intended as a race car first, would be better suited to continuing Toyota's development of a GT car. Thus Toyota announced they would skip the 1997 24 Hours of Le Mans to be able to develop their new GT car for 1998.