Gazoo creates a buzz with hot Yaris

Racing arm’s Toyota is a track tearaway

NINETY-NINE per cent of Toyota cars are well made, reliable, affordable and have as much emotional content as an electric kettle.

Occasionally, though, the Japanese giant makes something a bit special and surprises us. Like the original MR2, the ballistic Supra sports car and the current minimalist and back-to-basics GT86 coupe. Then it’s business as usual with millions of mundane hatchbacks and saloons.

Suddenly, another corker arrives. This one is called the Yaris GRMN and I’ll lay proper money on you not guessing what those initials stand for.

The GR bit spells out Gazoo Racing, the name of the outfit responsible for all of Toyota’s racing activities around the world. MN stands for Meister of the Nurburgring. A rather daft name but it’s attached to a rather special little car.

For starters, Toyota is only building 400 GRMNs for Europe of which 80 are coming to the UK. They’ve already been sold so we’re looking at the car today as a future secondhand prospect.

The list price is £26,295 which is a serious amount of money to pay for a Yaris – a car that in standard form costs half as much.

The GRMN is far from standard. In its nose sits a 1.8-litre fourcylinder engine developed by Lotus which is supercharged rather than having an exhaust-fed turbocharger, which is the norm.

The engine kicks out 209bhp and 250NM of torque. Neither are particularly large figures but that