It’s easier to get it out of the way up front: the Toyota GR Yaris is brilliant. It is easily one of the best cars, hell, things, to come out of 2020, and will almost certainly rank highly in ‘best hot hatches’ lists for years to come. And, sorry, America can’t have it (for now at least—perhaps Tweet Toyota USA and ask really nicely?).
The world hasn’t seen a proper homologation special for a while—a road car designed and built specifically to make a better race car. More recently, away from the glory days of the Eighties and Nineties, standard road cars were tweaked for the World Rally Championship because automakers felt a true homologation special would be too hard to sell in enough numbers. Here though, Toyota decided to build a hot hatch specifically so its rally car would be better off on the stages. Well, it could have been if Toyota hadn’t scrapped plans for the WRC car. It didn’t scrap the road car though. A good thing.
Only the wheelbase, lights, roof fin, and door mirrors are carried over from the regular Yaris—the rest is all bespoke for the GR. As such, its platform is a mix of Yaris and Corolla, it’s three-door only, and it’s packing a 1.6-liter three-cylinder motor mated to a six-speed stick and the world’s lightest four-wheel drive system. The whole thing weighs 2888 lbs at its heaviest (depending on spec), which is in Lotus Evora territory. It’s even got a carbon-polymer roof to keep the center of gravity down. Toyota, to put it bluntly, was not mucking around when it decided to build the GR.
Over the $39,665 standard car, there are a couple of options packs to go for—the $4630 Circuit Pack, which gives you lightweight forged 18-inch BBS wheels, retuned suspension, red brake calipers, front and rear Torsen diffs, and Michelin Pilot Sport 4S rubber; or the $2,000 Convenience pack, which gives you… convenient things. You can only choose one, and Toyota UK’s car came with the Circuit Pack. Excellent.
You can’t miss the GR from afar. You know how there are small people that look tall, and tall people who look small? It’s the former. It stands proud, poking its various extremities out to catch your eye. You’ll swear you see the nearest 3-Series flinch when you open the door. Inside it’s like any small hatch, really. Though a few things mark it out from the Yaris your mom might drive: A six-speed stick, some dedicated GR badging, and a speedo that goes up to 180 mph. Now, that 1.6-liter three-cylinder kicks out 257 hp and 265 lb-ft, meaning it’ll crack 0-62 mph in 5.5 seconds and go up to 143 mph. A way off the 180-mph high score, but still a three-pot cracking out that kind of performance is something else. Oh, and Toyota says it’ll average 28.6 mpg in mixed driving. It has a 6.1-cubic-foot trunk and seats in the back (albeit ones not suitable for tall people) as well, which makes it almost sensible for families. If you do the right math.
Now usually, it takes a few miles to get a sense of whether a car’s going to excite you or not. It took less than 100 yards in the GR Yaris. At startup, it sounds a little subdued and turbo-y, but that’s a modern hot hatch for you. The clutch is light, and slotting it in to first with its gloriously chunky stick is a short, sharp, pleasing move. Lifting the clutch and giving it some beans fires the car forward at an unexpected pace. The nose rises, the engine fires noise into the cabin, and all of a sudden you’re far further ahead of yourself than you really should be. “Jesus f^*k,” you mutter, “this thing is f^&king EPIC,” as you fire yourself down the road again. And again.
From there, it’s a matter of finding the right road and pressing the right buttons to make it behave as you want it to. In town, Normal mode is just fine. It keeps the car quiet and the four-wheel drive sends 60 percent of the torque forwards. It’s still brisk enough to make you laugh like a loon in its most docile setting. Twist the mode-select knob to Sport and the wick is turned up while the torque split goes 30:70 front-to-rear. Track mode keeps the angry going, and the power evenly split 50:50 for less hooliganism and more time-attack fun. But no matter which way the grunt flows, not a drop of power is wasted through its Michelin Pilot Sport 4S tires. Nasty damp roads have to be attacked with vigor to unstick it, though it’s more fun than scary if you do.
In town, the damping can feel a bit harsh, and it’s noisy on the highway. You can use it as a daily, but you’ll have gone in knowing that there are compromises to be made. Its happy place is a country lane. The tighter and twistier the better. Its steering is pointy, responding quickly to inputs and providing enough feedback to give you utmost confidence. Throttle response is sharp, the engine needing to be revved hard and high to keep the turbo firing you ever forward. Braking is, again, strong, scrubbing speed off at a moment’s notice. The act of putting it on the right empty road and letting it do its thing is overwhelming. Every straight is dealt with in no time at all, each apex found and hit with ease. The car feels planted, its chassis capable of taking careless punishment from the inexperienced and being expertly manipulated by the talented. You feel truly involved with the car, that it’s been designed to be driven like an absolute animal all the time. The springs aren’t overly stiff, which means you get a touch of that rally car ‘bob’ when you lean on the gas or brakes hard enough.
Much like its front-wheel-drive predecessor, the Yaris GRMN, the GR Yaris is not a car that sits happily at the speed limit. It’s an angry, yappy, prickly thing that enjoys being exercised for as long and hard as possible. It is a very easy car to lose your license in.
Thing is, most people, given the choice between a spicy Yaris and some zillion horsepower V-8 thing will go for the big power and glamour. And they’ll be scared to play with it on anything other than a highway straight. The person who picks the Yaris will be faster point to point than 99-percent of anyone else out there. It’s that kind of car—you can drive the doors off it with confidence and you’ll be laughing like a loon the whole time.
Toyota didn’t just make ‘a’ hot hatch. It made ‘the’ hot hatch.
