If it ain’t broke…

It began with evo’s March 2020 issue (271) and its cover story starring a selection of road-going Group A heroes (‘The A-team’). I loved the feature and it had me going into lockdown bidding on Imprezas, to no avail.

However, I still wanted something in the Group A ethos, and about a year later my GR Yaris arrived. Having read everything there was to read about the car and watched all the videos too, I was left wondering about all the things I apparently needed to do to the car to fix things with it. And how much that might cost. Then I took it to the Highlands for a few days.

From the big open roads sweeping through epic landscapes to the twisty single-track roads, the little Toyota was utterly brilliant. The long drive back south left me thinking, over the road noise, of the Ron Swanson quote: ‘I know what I’m about, son.’ The Yaris knows what it’s about. I am cleared of any thoughts that it needs more power, or better suspension, or anything else – it just needs the roads to do what it was designed to do.

I can see that it might not suit those who want the Mitsubishi Evo experience, and to those who want to make it a drag racer or rear-drive drift machine, you’re looking at the wrong car. But with just a few minor tweaks – to raise the mirror, add some mudflaps and lose the dreadful fake engine noise – I think I’ve got exactly what I need to fill that gap created by issue 271.

Thanks for the inspiration.

Matt Biggs

PS Adam Towler mentioned finding the fake engine noise grating in evo’s long-termer. I got a Carista Obd-port dongle to disable it in my car, but the dealer said that it could have been done for me on delivery except the GR tech wasn’t in when the car arrived.