The Short Version
- Nobody publishes who actually manufactures TRD wheels. Not TRD, and not the company everyone assumes makes them.
- TRD is operated by Toyota Customizing & Development, 90.5 per cent owned by Toyota Motor Corporation.
- The motorsport side left in December 2024, spun into a separate company. TRD-branded parts stayed behind.
- TRD also resells other brands’ wheels under their own names. That is a different thing from a TRD wheel.
The Question, and the Non-Answer
The most repeated claim in English-language writing about TRD wheels is that RAYS manufactures the TF series. We went looking for a primary source in either direction.
TRD’s own product page for the TF9 states the construction — cast aluminium, one-piece — and names no manufacturer. We then read RAYS’s own company and history pages in full. Neither mentions TRD at all.
The claim traces to enthusiast sites, parts-review tagging and search-engine summaries. None of that is a source. So our position is: we could not verify who makes TRD wheels, and neither could anyone else who is being honest about it.
It may well be RAYS. It may be Enkei, which supplies most Japanese manufacturers OEM. We are not going to convert a widely-repeated guess into a fact by repeating it a bit more confidently.
Who TRD Is, Corporately
Worth getting straight, because it changed recently and most writing has not caught up.
The TRD brand is operated by Toyota Customizing & Development Co., Ltd. (TCD), whose own corporate page states it is 90.5 per cent owned by Toyota Motor Corporation and 9.5 per cent by Toyota Tsusho. Its stated business includes planning, developing and selling MODELLISTA and GR PARTS products, and undertaking development work contracted from Toyota Motor Corporation.
So TRD is not an independent tuner that Toyota tolerates. It is a Toyota subsidiary doing Toyota’s own development work.
TCD’s history page gives the founding date as August 1976.
The December 2024 Split
This is the current fact that matters. In December 2024, TCD spun its motorsports business off into a newly established company, Toyota GAZOO Racing Development Co., Ltd. (TGR-D), by company split, transferring motorsports operations to the new entity.
The consequence for anyone reading about TRD today: the parts and accessories business — including the TF-series wheels — stayed with TCD, while competition motorsport moved to TGR-D. “TRD” as a parts brand and “Toyota Racing Development” as a racing operation are now, formally, two different companies.
We could not determine how TRD’s separate motorsports parts site fits into the new structure; it was still copyrighted to TCD when we checked.
The TF Series
Confirmed directly from TRD’s own page, for the current wheel:
- TRD TF9 — 18×7.5J, inset +48, 5-hole PCD 100, cast aluminium one-piece
- Two finishes: Brilliant Black Polish, and Rim Brush Matte Black
- Supplied with centre cap and air valve
- MSRP ¥49,500 including tax
Note the 5×100, which places it on the 86/BRZ and Subaru-platform family rather than the 5×114.3 mainstream.
TRD’s after-support parts page lists the full lineage — TF1 through TF9, plus a separate SF1 to SF4 and TA1 line — with most of the early TF1, TF2 and TF4 part numbers marked 生産中止, discontinued. If you are hunting an older TF wheel, it is a used purchase.
“TRD Selection” Is Not TRD Wheels
Here is a distinction that catches people out, and it is on TRD’s own catalogue.
Alongside its proprietary TF and SF lines, TRD curates and sells wheels from other manufacturers under those manufacturers’ own names. The brands listed on TRD’s own page include JAOS, KYOHO, SARD, TOM’S, TOPY, TWS, weds and WORK.
So a wheel bought through a TRD catalogue is not necessarily a TRD wheel. A WORK wheel sold via TRD Selection is a WORK wheel, made by WORK, with WORK’s markings and WORK’s specification. Worth knowing when a listing says “TRD” and shows something that looks nothing like a TF.
JWL and VIA
No JWL or VIA claim appears on the TF9 product page we read. We found a secondary summary asserting that TRD 17-inch wheels carry JWL engraving, and we could not verify it from any TRD page.
As with Enkei, the absence of a marketing claim is not evidence of absence on the wheel — a Toyota subsidiary marking its Japanese-market wheels to JWL would be entirely ordinary. But we report what the source says, and the source does not say it.
Modellista, and the Counterfeit Notice
Modellista is a sibling brand under the same operating company. TCD’s business scope explicitly names MODELLISTA products, described as Toyota tie-up customisation products and dealer special-edition vehicles. Same subsidiary, different positioning — TRD is the performance badge, Modellista the styling one. We did not research Modellista’s own wheel offerings.
TRD also maintains an official counterfeit-warning page, titled to the effect of “beware of imitations misusing the TRD logo and trademark.” We confirmed it exists but did not read its full text, so we are not going to characterise what it says beyond its subject.
What We Could Not Verify
- Who manufactures the TF series. The RAYS claim is unconfirmed by either company’s own materials, in either direction.
- Whether TF-series wheels carry JWL or VIA marks.
- TRD USA’s wheel lineup and whether it overlaps with the Japanese TF series. We reached no primary US-side source.
- How TRD’s motorsports parts site fits the post-2024 corporate split.
- Modellista’s own wheel products, if any.
- The full text of TRD’s counterfeit notice.