2nd Toyota Yaris GRMN
It’s a great first effort, but high price tag and limited availability hold new hot hatch back
TOYOTA returned to the World Rally Championship in 2017 with its Yaris WRC – with some success, we might add – and this project partly inspired the Yaris GRMN hot hatch. That four-letter tag stands for ‘Gazoo Racing tuned by the Master of Nürburgring’, and highlights where the car has been partly developed and how serious Toyota is about the project.
Just because a car works well at the German race track is no guarantee it’ll succeed in the UK, but the Yaris is a riot on B-roads that challenge other hot hatches. There’s some stiffening for the structure, including a front suspension brace, while the car sits 24mm lower than standard to lower the centre of gravity and improve handling. On top of this, the GRMN has a thicker anti-roll bar and some bespoke Sachs dampers with firmer settings to match the stiffer springs.
The result is a sweet-handling small hatchback that’s firm, but not unruly. The steering is geared exactly for the grip on offer, with the wheel adopted from the GT86 helping here.
The damping feels well tuned for most bumpy, bucking and broken roads, too. There’s a nice degree of flow to the suspension, especially at the top of its travel, soaking up inputs well so you can carry pretty impressive corner speed.
Only when you push very hard does the GRMN start to show its drawbacks. As the suspension nears the bottom of its travel it firms up and sometimes hits the bump stops with a thump, although it’s an exceptional circumstance.
The 1.8-litre supercharged four-cylinder engine is unusual; most of the Toyota’s rivals copy the 208 GTI by using 1.6-litre turbo units. However, the Yaris’s engine is a peach. The linear response means it revs hard right the way through to its limiter, goading you into holding the throttle with a hard-edged whoosh from the free-flowing central-exit exhaust.
A Torsen limited-slip differential gives great traction out of bends, which boosts the Yaris’s agility as you squeeze the throttle on, tightening the car’s line. It feels better suited to the chassis than the Peugeot’s similar diff.
It also helps off the line, because the engine, gearbox and diff combined to help the GRMN sprint from 0-60mph in 6.1 seconds. However, even though it uses a supercharger, the 250Nm of torque is 50Nm down on the 208 and produced higher up at 4,800rpm; the Yaris couldn’t match the Gti’s figures – especially from 50-70mph in sixth, where it was 1.7 seconds slower. Big four-piston front brake calipers and 275mm grooved discs ensure there’s stopping power to match the thrust. The Yaris is fairly light and turns well, but still doesn’t feel as aggressive as the 208.