This Toyota has no rival. Japan’s most influential company has just launched the GR Yaris—a stonking hatchback on steroids, but unfortunately the U.S. is not in its sights. For now, at least.
Up until about a decade ago, Toyota was known for making safe, reliable, conservatively designed, reasonably priced and exceptionally popular models like the Corolla, Prius, Camry and RAV4 among others. When Akio Toyoda became president of Japan’s biggest carmaker in 2009, he immediately initiated plans to revitalize the brand’s lineup by adding cars that were more fun to drive while injecting funds and talent into Toyota’s racing program, which had already taken on the awkward name of Gazoo Racing (GR).
Under his leadership, GR (finally) won Le Mans, captured the World Rally Championships, picked up class victories at the Nurburgring 24-hours, and snagged trophies in Japan’s Super GT series.
In fact, to reinforce its chances of picking up victory in both the drivers and manufacturers WRC titles, after winning only the drivers title last year, Japan’s No 1 automaker has just launched an all-new pint-sized hatchback called the GR Yaris, and it packs a powerful punch. But unlike the Toyota 86, that was co-developed with Subaru, and the Supra, which was co-designed with BMW, the Yaris is all Toyota, from the ground up.
At the just-completed Tokyo Auto Salon, I got to check out the new WRC rally machine and its wild production model derivative. And without doubt, this is the hottest 1.6-liter, 3-cylinder turbocharged hatch on the planet today. Where as the 86 employed a Subaru boxer engine and transmission and the Supra inherited a BMW 6-cylinder powertrain and chassis, the Yaris is 100% pure Toyota. Dare I say, the brand has finally achieved a major goal of the 21st century—showing the world that it can make an in-house world-beater.
Firstly, Toyota stylists threw caution to the wind. The mini-hatch gets hulking blistered wheel arches, a humungous air-gulping grille to feed that intercooler, a wider track and maxed-out 18-inch BBS wheels and sticky rubber. The exterior would seem right at home in the next Avengers movie. Inside, it gets sporty aluminum pedals and stitched seats, a big touchscreen and subtle switches, but strangely the seat position seems oddly high. Obviously a full rally-spec roll cage is offered on the WRC spec.
Packing 268 hp and 272 lb-ft of torque, a 6-speed manual gearbox (no auto option), rally-honed 4WD system, independent suspension, and generous doses of aluminum body panels, the 2,821 pound lightweight GR Yaris will jump from zero to 60mph in under 5 seconds. This could well be the supercar for 2020s. In a world of hybrids and electrification, this unapologetic analog machine only allows the driver to tweak the 4WD system. In Normal mode, it’s 60:40 front/rear. In Sport mode, 70 per cent goes to the rears. Twist the knob around to Defcon Track and you can select an even 50:50 split, for maximum neutrality and pace.
This is the car that Toyota of America should seriously consider adding to its lineup. Sure its sticker price might hover around the $40,000 mark, but when you consider that you are getting near supercar performance in a Fast and Furious ready hatch for the price of a fully specced RAV4, isn’t that something worth considering?
