HOW IT COMPARES to the BEST of the REST TOYOTA GR YARIS 2020 UK REVIEW Possibly the Most Exciting Addition to the Hot Hatchback Market in a Decade
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5-STAR REVIEW SPECIAL ISSUE FIRST99 FOR NEWNEWS AND REVIEWS CARS EVERY WEEK Est. 1895 | autocar.co.uk NEW GR YARIS IS… 2020’S BEST HOT HATCH Amazing new The first truly great car of Toyota blitzes the decade every rival HOW IT COMPARES TO THE BEST OF THE REST TOYOTA GR YARIS 2020 UK REVIEW Possibly the most exciting addition to the hot hatchback market in a decade. Wickedly purposeful, and wonderfully evocative of fast 4x4s of old. he new Toyota GR Yaris has actually been coming for even T longer than most of us may realise. While this car has had an extensively previewed gestation, it’s the first ground-up performance car that Toyota has developed ‘all on its own’ in some twenty years. By which is meant ‘without the help of another dedicated car-maker,’ of course. Because believe me, to have made a hot hatchback this good, Toyota must have had quite a lot of help from some very clever people who have been spending a lot of weekends with messrs Makinen, Meeke, Tanak and Latvala. So, now that we’ve driven it – extensively, on a mix of UK roads and on track, and in its most alluringly specialized mechanical specification, we should add – we can at last confirm what matters most: that the hubbub of anticipation might actually have undersold the GR Yaris. This is a wonderfully exciting, amazingly capable and strangely evocative drivers’ car, and a very rare and special hot hatchback indeed. ◊ TOYOTA GR YARIS 2020 REVIEW ∆ First, we’d better define precisely why series-production performance cars that the GR Yaris exists. If the prospect of this it would make itself – and which might 257bhp, four-wheel drive supermini takes therefore be able to influence production you back, it’s not by accident. The GR Yaris Toyotas more widely for years afterwards. is the closest thing we’ve seen in some thirty In an attempt to radically shift the market perception of the Toyota brand, WHAT IS IT? WHAT years to a downsized rally homologation special; a modern MG Metro 6R4 or then, boss Akio Toyoda would accept Peugeot 205 Turbo 16, it may seem. nothing less than such a bold, radical – It certainly has the unmistakable visual and undoubtedly expensive – strategy; presence of those cars, with its dramatically which actually makes this a fascinating swollen wheelarches and air intakes – and anti-homologation car – of a sort. the association will do the Toyota no harm If you disqualify the GR Supra produced whatsoever. But that’s not actually what it is two years ago as many do because of its at all. Rather than commissioning a very shared BMW underpinnings, and the limited production run of road cars, built last-gen Yaris GRMN as the appetite- out-of-house, in order to legitimize a testing exercise it so clearly was, the GR World Rally Championship campaign, Yaris is the first opportunity that Toyota Toyota did the reverse when it sewed has had to show the world how seriously the seed for this car back in 2015. it intends to take its mission. It is not an TECHNICAL SPECS It invested in a new motorsport division opportunity squandered. ◊ Model tested: Toyota GR Yaris Circuit Pack (Gazoo Racing) and a top-level rallying Price: £33,495 program with the specific intention of Price as tested: £33,495 applying what it might learn into better Engine: 3 cyls inline, 1618cc, turbo petrol Transmission: 6-spd manual; 4WD; Torsen LSDs front and rear (opt). POWER KERB WEIGHT (DIN) 257bhp 1310kg TORQUE FUEL ECONOMY 266lb ft 34.3mpg 0-62MPH CO2 5.5sec 186g/km TOP SPEED BIK TAX BAND 143mph (limited) 37% AUTOCAR.CO.UK TOYOTA GRYARIS YARIS GR 20202020 REVIEWREVIEW ∆ The very idea of this car promises big. It is a compact, supermini-sized package with an engine ❝ and drivetrain that lift it way out of the hot supermini Here is a Toyota ready niche, and actually place it on a par with an Audi S3 or VW Golf R for power-to-weight ratio. It has a to hold your imagination unique chassis that’s a hybrid of Toyota’s GA-B and –C platforms, and that’s been strengthened and like few performance reinforced all over the place. It has lightweight WHAT’S IT LIKE? IT WHAT’S cars of the price aluminium and carbonfibre-composite panels, and all-independent suspension and aerodynamics that ❞ have been developed with the help of designers and engineers from Toyota’s WRC team. It also has a manual gearbox; nothing less than the most powerful three-cylinder engine in any production vehicle in the world; and the first proprietary four-wheel drive system that Toyota has developed for a road car in two decades, which can be set for a rear-biased torque distribution and augmented with proper ‘Torsen’ limited-slip differentials for both axles as you prefer. If that doesn’t excite you, folks? Well, I’m not sure any modern hot hatchback will. Then again, even if it doesn’t, I’m pretty sure the driving experience would. The GR Yaris is of a performance breed that you might have unconsciously consigned to history. It’s redolent of a time before seeking a thrill out on the public road became so socially toxic. When our roads were quieter, and the affordable performance cars we had to enjoy on them – from Delta Integrales to fast Imprezas and Lancer Evos – wore dynamic qualities like hard-hitting mid-range performance, any-weather traction and unconditional handling stability as badges of honour, and their affordable pricetags just as proudly. that it shares with a regular Yaris are its lights, door mirrors That doesn’t make the GR Yaris the most and roof aerial. The car’s roofline has its own profile and modern-feeling of vehicle concepts, granted. But boy, sits some 45mm lower to the ground, so you duck your head is it ever good. Improbably fast and composed over ever so slightly on the way in. The driving position isn’t so the ground, with a stability and simple drivability different from that of the regular supermini, though: that make it indecently easy to carry speed in. you sit high at the controls but really well supported in a And yet it’s also characterful, involving and good-sized sports seat, with decent passenger space and mechanically tactile, with a chassis ready to liven up adjustment range for the controls even for taller drivers. underneath you just enough when the opportunity The car’s instruments have a few new digital modes, presents. It’s a car that just begs to be driven quickly, but down on the transmission tunnel is where the chief in other words – and the more you’re prepared to differences are. In place of the regular Yaris’ electronic explore how quickly it’ll go, the better it gets. handbrake you’ll find a manual one with an old-fashioned And what makes all of the above seem deliciously lever; if you pull it on while the car’s moving, the four-wheel improbable is the fact that it’s a Toyota Yaris; drive system automatically disconnects the rear halfshafts although not much of one. The only body components (which might be my favourite technical feature about the whole car). Meanwhile, Toyota has also moved the gearshift console upwards and forwards for more intuitive access, and next to it you’ll find the GR’s rotary drive mode selector. It defaults to ‘normal’ mode, in which the clutch-based driveline gives you a 60:40 front-to-rear torque split. Tweak it to the right and you get ‘track’ mode, which moves the default torque bias to 50:50. But rotate it to the left and, in ‘sport’ mode, you get a 30:70 split. It’s not a lockable torque split, so that lion’s share of torque only stays at the rear contact patches until the front ones begin to spin up; but it does have an influence over the way the GR Yaris handles. ◊ AUTOCAR.CO.UK TOYOTA GRYARIS YARIS GR 20202020 REVIEWREVIEW ∆ The car’s performance is a lot more serious than you might imagine any supermini – those ‘80s homologation legends notwithstanding – could ever be. The three-cylinder engine sounds vocally meek-and-mild at first; a bit like an angry Daihatsu Charade with a loud-hailer. You warm to its charms, though – particularly once you’ve discovered how keenly it responds to throttle inputs, how indefatigably boosty it feels through the mid-range, and how freely it revs beyond 5000rpm. And the resulting potential for roll-on acceleration? I’d swear it feels every bit as potent as early Subaru Impreza Turbos did, only without the laggy pause for intake of breath of the old Scoob. It’s a giggle to say the very least. The medium-heavy, alluringly tactile shift quality is surprisingly ‘Scoobyish’ too; likewise the progressive, composed-yet-supple way it Here is a Toyota quite clearly ready to hold rides and handles at pace. There was just a little bit of bite about our test your imagination like few performance cars car’s low-speed ride (Toyota’s optional Circuit Pack, as fitted, adds stiffer of the price. Even at this early stage, I wouldn’t springs, dampers and roll bars, as well as lightweight forged 18in alloy be afraid to call it a landmark car. If there wheels, Michelin Pilot Sport 4S tyres and the aforementioned Torsen are more GR models like it in the pipeline, it slippy diffs front and rear), but it becomes pleasingly f luent at cross- could well be the start of an era every bit as country speeds.