Toyota GR Yaris v Honda Civic Type R 2021 Comparison

Cast aside their small stature: for many people, this may as well be coined the battle of the performance heavyweights.

The new Toyota GR Yaris has landed in Australia to a chorus of fanfare and hype. Marking the first rally homologation special from the Japanese manufacturer for more than two decades, the three-cylinder, all-wheel drive pocket rocket puts grin-inducing performance back on the table for an attainable price point – $50,000.

But the 2021 Toyota GR Yaris doesn’t hold a mortgage on the hot hatch genre at this price.

In the opposite corner, we have a wily veteran, and a car that needs little introduction. The $55K 2021 Honda Civic Type R is the consummate driver’s choice within Honda’s ranks, a vehicle that continues to fly the flag for accessible performance four years into its current lifecycle and with its humble front-drive layout.

This comparison test also marks something of a swansong for the recently-updated Civic Type R, as Honda is about to close the UK plant where it is built, leaving supply to remaining stock.

And if you haven’t already got your name on one of these, you’re probably out of luck.

There are striking differences between these two contenders – in size (light versus small), drivetrain (all-wheel drive versus front-wheel drive) and production origin (Japan versus England).

Yet both are Japanese in engineering, design and spirit, and both are solely available with a manual transmission.

More than that, we want to ascertain whether the hype of the GR Yaris is truly founded by putting it up against what has widely been regarded as the dynamic performance benchmark at this money.

At more than $50,000 apiece on the road, it’s going to take a devoted enthusiast to snap up either the 2021 Toyota GR Yaris or the 2021 Honda Civic Type R.

Toyota essentially tested the waters on price when it released the first 1000 versions of the GR Yaris at $39,990 drive-away. Not surprisingly, buyers spoke with their feet and snapped up those examples in days before Toyota eventually hiked the permanent price to $49,500 plus on-road costs.

There’s also the higher-spec Toyota GR Yaris Rallye for $54,500 plus ORCs, though we weren’t able to secure one in time for this test.

Performance aside (we’ll get to the oily bits further on), the GR Yaris gets 18-inch alloy wheels, keyless entry and start, LED headlights, tail-lights and fog lights, dual-zone climate control and plenty more.

On the cabin tech front there’s a 7.0-inch centre colour display with Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, Bluetooth, reversing camera and eight-speaker audio, a 4.2-inch digital display with the otherwise analogue instrument cluster, plus a head-up display.

Also included is Toyota’s Safety Sense package, which bundles autonomous emergency braking (AEB), lane keeping assist and more to almost align with the Yaris donor model.

Despite its rallying pedigree, the GR model misses out on a spare tyre, making do with a tyre inflation kit.

Next to the GR Yaris on the grid, the Honda Civic Type R measures a whole half-metre longer and offers two additional doors and a much more useable interior.

So Type R is the slightly more pragmatic purchase of these two at $54,990 plus on-road costs. It, too, is subject to a recent pricing increase – to the order of $3000 over the MY20 model.

Perhaps more pertinent is that the Type R is virtually sold out in its current guise. Honda says some dealers may have small amounts of floor stock, but otherwise it may be a case of waiting for the next-generation Civic Type R set to arrive in late 2022 or early 2023.

There are a swag of performance and mechanical updates to the Type R for 2021 which we’ll get to in the next section.

Standard kit includes 20-inch alloy wheels, dual-zone climate control, keyless entry/start, reversing camera and the like – much of it line ball with the GR Yaris save for heated front seats and heated steering wheel.

For 2021, the Type R now gets updated fog light nacelles and a new colour, the unmissable Racing Blue driven here.

Recent cabin changes include a new Alcantara-covered steering wheel and gear shifter, which has a teardrop-style shape and also gets an internal counterweight (90g) designed to enhance shift feel and accuracy.

Elsewhere, upgrades to the infotainment system include an updated 7.0-inch touch-screen display and the Honda LogR data-logging system, which has three main modes: a performance monitor and log mode for racetrack driving analysis, and an auto score ‘gamification’ mode that “encourages smooth day-to-day driving” by awarding points for smooth progress.

There’s revised functionality and both audio volume and controls like fan speed are back to being hard buttons, something we’ll never argue with.

Also included is the Honda Sensing suite of driver aids that includes everything from adaptive cruise control and lane departure mitigation, through to auto-dipping headlights and autonomous emergency braking (AEB).

The Civic Type R also get a tyre inflation kit instead of a spare.

In terms of servicing and aftersales, the Civic takes another small edge. Both vehicles are backed by a five-year/unlimited-kilometre warranty and both are subject to 10,000km service intervals, but the GR Yaris is otherwise expected back in the bay every six months compared to the Civic Type R at 12 months.

Toyota says the GR Yaris will set you back $1560 over three years of ownership. That compares with $969 for the Type R over the same period.

There’s more than one way to peel an orange in the hot hatch segment – and the 2021 Toyota GR Yaris and Honda Civic Type R are a perfect demonstration.

The pair diverges both in terms of their displacement, cylinder counts and driven wheels.

Beginning with the GR Yaris, there’s 200kW of power and 370Nm of torque on offer from a 1.6-litre three-cylinder turbo-petrol engine. A six-speed manual is your sole transmission choice and drive is sent to all four wheels via Toyota’s GR-FOUR all-wheel drive system.

The all-paw system apportions torque to the front and rear axles according to which of the three driving modes you’ve selected. Normal splits 60:40 front-rear, Sport transitions to 30:70 while Track goes for an optimal 50:50 split.

These are theoretically nominal figures, according to Toyota, with the system able to apportion 100 per cent of torque to either the front or rear axle depending on individual wheel slippage.

The GR Yaris boasts a 0-100km/h acceleration time of 5.2 seconds and an electronically limited top speed of 230km/h. It requires 98-octane premium unleaded.

Underpinning the GR Yaris is a mix of Toyota’s TNGA architecture. The front-end is essentially a Yaris and the rear-end is from the larger Corolla footprint. The GR model also swaps out the donor Yaris’ torsion beam rear suspension for a more sophisticated multilink arrangement, and employs lighter-weight materials across its MacPherson strut front-end.

All that firepower requires significant braking, to which Toyota presents 356mm discs combined with four-pot callipers up front and 297mm rear discs clamped by two pistons. Standard rubber is Dunlop SP Sport Maxx measuring 18 inches at all four corners.

For the record, the more expensive GR Yaris Rallye adds an upgraded chassis with lighter, stronger 18-inch forged alloy BBS wheels, Michelin Pilot Sport 4S tyres, stiffer track-tuned suspension and a Torsen limited-slip differential for both the front and rear axle.

Over in Honda’s camp, the Civic Type R packages a 2.0-litre turbo-petrol four-cylinder engine offering 228kW/400Nm, shuffling drive to the front wheels via a six-speed manual and limited-slip differential.

For 2021, there are many relatively subtle changes including upgrades to ride and handling and engine cooling. Output holds firm, but the engine is fed via a larger radiator and bigger grille opening so that it can stay cooler in higher ambient conditions.

The electronics for the Civic Type R’s three-stage adaptive dampers can now evaluate road conditions 20 times per second, while bushes front and rear have been stiffened for better alignment and wheel control, and new lower-friction front ball joints deliver more accurate steering response and feel.

There are now lighter two-piece non-drilled front brakes measuring 350mm and wrapped by four-piston callipers, while the rear discs measure 305mm and work with single-piston grippers. Tyres are 20-inch Continental SportContact 6.

Although the Type R is larger in every dimension, the official weight difference between these two isn’t the yawning gulf you might expect.

Due in part to the Toyota’s all-wheel drive system, the GR Yaris tips the scales at 1280kg, according to Toyota. (We’ve also seen kerb weight listed at 1320kg.) This compares with 1389kg for the Type R.

That lends the Honda a small advantage in power-to-weight, at 163kW/tonne versus the Toyota’s 156kW/tonne.

Honda Australia doesn’t provide an official 0-100km/h time, but UK figures place it at 5.8sec – six-tenths behind the GR Yaris – while top speed is listed at 270km/h, up 40km/h on the Toyota.

We spent most of this comparison at the Pheasantwood Circuit at Marulan, about 90 minutes’ drive south of Sydney.

We’ve visited this 1.6km layout on numerous occasions, including a recent head-to-head between the Mercedes-AMG A 45 S v Audi RS 3 Sportback. We’ve mention that particular comparison for its lap times, but more on that in a moment.

On country roads, highways and some urban driving to and from Pheasantwood, it’s the Honda Civic Type R that takes a small edge.

Its larger 2700mm wheelbase bests the Yaris’ smaller 2560mm footprint by offering a more settled ride, and the Honda’s adaptive dampers manage to take the edge off bumps felt in the passively-damped Toyota.

Similarly, the Civic’s passenger amenity fares marginally better than the Yaris’ – you can read more about that in the next section – and it is the quieter of the two in terms of road noise and wind noise.

We arrive at Pheasantwood, where it’s first out in the Toyota GR Yaris – and what a track-ready dynamo it is.

Fun, playful and matched by a satisfying engine, the GR Yaris is also largely accessible with its performance parameters.

The weighting of the steering, the efficacy of the all-wheel drive system is such that the driver is afforded more leniency in overshooting a corner, being ham-fisted with controls or early with inputs. It’s a predictable car that’s easy to gather up and stay on line with.

The three-pot engine is also a corker. It plies power down cleanly in a straight line, and offers a decent spread of go-forward thanks to a torque peak that arrives between 3000-4600rpm and a power peak that chimes in at 6500rpm.

The lack of mechanical limited-slip diffs at either axle (as found in the GR Yaris Rallye) made our test car more prone to understeer on the circuit upon aggressive corner exits, but it still tracked in a predictable and manageable manner.

Loosening the electronic reins liberates even more playfulness from the three-door. Lift-off oversteer is prevalent yet it is also nicely metered in terms of yaw and sideways movement. You’ll need the mechanical handbrake if you want to elicit the full opposite-lock, smoky tyre experience – and even then, a wet surface to do so.

The upshot is a vehicle that is easy to come to grips with, even when the grip is not always present. This brings us to our biggest complaint: the easiest way to improve the GR Yaris is to shoe it with better rubber.

Even in heady road driving, the Dunlop SP Sport Maxx tyres simply don’t provide the adhesion and grip levels a car like this commands, a feature augmented much more on circuit. As a result, it isn’t long before the GR Yaris is moving around in spite of its clearly clever all-wheel drive system.

Having driven the hotter GR Yaris Rallye, we can also vouch for the installation of a limited-slip differential on each axle. It really tightens the car’s progress on circuit, and makes it more focused.

There is also an element of disconnect in the GR due to a driver’s seat that is perched too high for a performance car, and outward vision is heavily obscured by a low-set rear-view mirror and bulky pillars.

The Civic Type R, on the other hand, feels the edgier and better balanced of these two and the more proficient on circuit. Yet it commands more respect as a result.

Faster, weightier steering, a remarkable gear shift and willing engine are the key hallmarks of the driving experience.

The 2.0-litre VTEC has peak outputs at similar points in the rev count as the GR Yaris: peak power at 6500rpm and peak torque between 2500-4500rpm. Gearing is well suited to the Pheasantwood circuit and, like the GR Yaris, the shift and pick-up of the manual is terrific.

And despite its relatively dull soundtrack, the Type R is the much more visceral in its approach.

It’s also the vehicle more dependent on driver inputs and timing. Get too early on the throttle out of corners and you’ll pay a penalty in the form of torque-steer, for example. Overshoot a corner and it is harder to return to the racing line.

With that said, it is nigh on impossible to induce understeer in the Type R when driven properly, such is the superlative grip levels and front-end bite on offer. Superior Continental SportContact 6 rubber is a key reason, as is the mechanical grip and body control.

Braking is stable and the immediacy of the controls are top-notch, but it’s the balance on offer here that really enamours. This feels like a front-drive 911. There’s a voodoo-like telepathy at play and the lap times don’t lie…

Around Pheasantwood, the Type R posts a 1:01.30 lap versus a 1:04.58 time for the GR Yaris.

To lend even more perspective, the all-wheel drive Audi RS 3 Sportback recently covered the same ground in 1:01.15 and the Mercedes-AMG A 45 S in 1:00.57. Yes, the front-drive Civic was within a second of both!

It’s easy to see the 2021 Toyota GR Yaris pays a bigger penalty for its performance focus.

For starters, cabin plastics and materials don’t feel up to its $50,000 price tag. To give you an example, the roof lining feels like it’s made from egg cartons.

Elsewhere, the all-wheel drive system has imposed a big compromise on the tiny 141-litre boot and, as we mentioned earlier, there’s no spare tyre.

The GR Yaris’ instrumentation is clear and concise to navigate, and the infotainment system is sound, though we’d really like more than just one USB port. No centre arm rest or console also add to the lack of everyday amenity.

You’d be happy to forgo a lot of these niceties in the name of performance, but unfortunately for the GR Yaris its opponent in this comparo does not.

There’s more incidental storage in the Honda Civic Type R, a bridge-design centre console and an additional USB port. Vision is also better considered and you sit nice and low in the cockpit, with much more headroom front and rear.

It has rear doors too, of course, and the extra legroom in the second row also underlines its more practical nature. Ditto the more generous 414-litre boot.

Interior execution still isn’t perfect, though – there are no rear air vents, you only get four seats instead of five, and despite the updated infotainment system, many functions are hidden in myriad menus. The Apple CarPlay functionality could be better integrated as well.

The objective in this comparison test was to find the best driver’s car at this money, and it’s clear the 2021 Honda Civic Type R retains the mantle.

Better balanced, more rewarding and scintillatingly quick, the Civic Type R proved insurmountably quicker than the Toyota GR Yaris in circuit driving, while also being more comfortable and accommodating on the road.

Furthermore, it is cheaper to own and service, has much more cabin space and a slightly smarter interior execution.

The 2021 Toyota GR Yaris is a fantastic all-wheel drive performance car that should be celebrated. For those lucky enough to secure one at $39K drive-away, you’ve arguably bagged the best deal of all.

The elephant in the room here is the Civic Type R’s exterior looks, especially in this Sonic Hedgehog-esque test vehicle. Each to their own, we say.

Other than that, Honda’s front-drive hot hatch is still the consummate driver’s car. A true titan despite its small stature.

Thanks to the good folk at Pheasantwood Circuit in Marulan for their assistance in undertaking this comparison test.

How much does the 2021 Toyota GR Yaris cost?
Price: $49,500 (plus on-road costs)
Available: Now
Engine: 1.6-litre three-cylinder turbo-petrol
Output: 200kW/370Nm
Transmission: Six-speed manual
Fuel: 7.6L/100km (ADR Combined)
CO2: 172g/km (ADR Combined)
Safety rating: Not tested

How much does the 2021 Honda Civic Type R cost?
Price: $54,990 (plus on-road costs)
Available: Now
Engine: 2.0-litre four-cylinder turbo-petrol
Output: 228kW/400Nm
Transmission: Six-speed manual
Fuel: 8.8L/100km (ADR Combined)
CO2: 200g/km (ADR Combined)
Safety rating: Not tested