Toyota GR Yaris joins the CAR fleet
STARRING THE SENSATIONAL TOYOTA GR YARIS + GOODBYE TO OUR HONDA E + CATERHAM SEVEN MEETS ITS MAKERS The universally lauded new darling of the hot hatch world is here. Will six months living with it change our view?
Plus visiting the Caterham factory for a drive with the boss, and summing up the Honda E
I know we’re living in strange times, but I never anticipated reality becoming so skewed that my colleagues would be green-eyed with jealousy over the opportunity to drive a Toyota Yaris. Were it not for social distancing I’m pretty sure I’d have been wrestled to the ground for the keys to CAR’s new GR Yaris by now.
Can’t say I blame them: this is no ordinary Yaris. The GR (for Gazoo Racing, the catchy but weird, no-direct-translation name for Toyota’s motorsport and performance-car division) was launched at the back end of last year and instantly became one of the world’s most desirable new cars. It also won our 2020 Hot Hatch of the Year test (CAR, December 2020) against rivals from all corners of the performance hatchback kingdom.
I couldn’t be at that test, so I’m coming to the Yaris cold. The first time I see the GR in the metal comes when it’s delivered, and there’s no doubt it’s something a bit special, arches bulging from its bespoke bodyshell like a werewolf part-way through metamorphosis. It’s as if a Supra GT racing car is trying to escape from your gran’s shopping car.
Styling that could have been directed by John Landis isn’t the only reason to get excited about the GR Yaris. As the centre console’s ‘Developed for the FIA World Rally Championship’ plaque (made from plastic that feels like it’s still curing) suggests, this is a car that purportedly takes a big dollop of its DNA from the thing that looks a bit like a Yaris Toyota’s works team fields in the WRC. Not only that, the GR Yaris was also designed to be a homologation platform itself for Toyota’s next-generation Yaris WRC car.
Like a rally car, the GR Yaris is four-wheel drive and as much as 70 per cent of torque can be sent to the rear wheels. Gazoo’s rally engineers have had a hand in its unique chassis structure and the tuning its suspension (MacPherson-strut front, double-wishbone rear).
In the engine bay is the most powerful three-cylinder currently fitted to a production car, at 257bhp. It’s a 1.6, but so brawny is its performance you’d swear it was a 2.0-litre four. Sounds bigger than it really is too, courtesy of rumbly (if silly) augmented engine noise through the speakers. ⊲
It’s a lot of car for the money – not that it feels it on the inside, where it has the same dash as a regular Yaris
You use hands and feet to change gear, via a short-throw H-pattern six-speed. In fact, it’s such a hooligan’s dream that not only does it have a proper handbrake (the regular Yaris has an electric switch), the rear driveshafts decouple if you pull it on the move, so Toyota actively expects it to be used for handbrake turns.
There are three levels of GR Yaris: the base car at a fiver under £30k; the Convenience Pack (£32,175), which adds a head-up display, parking sensors, voice recognition and nicer audio; and our car’s Circuit Pack spec (£33,495 – see below for details).
If that sounds like a decent chunk of cash, it is, but it’s a lot of car for the money. Not that it feels it on the inside, where it’s afflicted with the same well-built-but-dull dash as the regular Yaris (with bulges in odd places, no storage compartments in the bits where you’d expect to find them and random shelves and nooks elsewhere that don’t seem to hold anything at all).
Even that can be interpreted as an endorsement of the Yaris’s credentials, if you’re feeling well disposed to the idea. The GR’s dull cabin is reminiscent of Subaru Impreza WRX STis and Mitsubishi Lancer Evos which had ditchwatergrey interiors but driving experiences that were anything but. Great seats in the GR, though you can’t help but feel you’re sitting a bit too high, as is often the case in today’s hot hatches.
First impressions from the driver’s seat are of a really engaging driving machine. Snapshots glimpsed on wigglier sections of journeys are of a grippy yet adjustable balance, nicely judged suspension, particularly over dips and crests, and searing pace (I’m convinced there’s an extra cylinder hidden somewhere). That and the potential for power oversteer out of wet roundabouts.
I can’t wait to get to know the GR Yaris better over the next few weeks and months, to find if it lives up to the hype on long exposure. If, that is, my colleagues don’t find a way to borrow it first.