Toyota GR Yaris 2020 Review - International

The biggest problem with the Toyota GR Yaris, as it will officially be called when it’s launched late next year, is it's not actually a Yaris.

Toyota’s new Yaris hatch, which arrives in the first half of 2020, is a perfectly sensible five-door shopping cart with a range of small efficient engines. The GR Yaris is none of those things.

Instead, it's a wild, renegade rally refugee that's been designed, developed and engineered to win the Monte Carlo Rally.

Ask an engineer behind the pint-size Toyota GR Yaris what it shares with the regular humble supermini and they'll struggle.

Not a single body panel of the three-door is borrowed from the 'base' car, with the GR sporting bespoke wider front and rear fenders and lightweight aluminium for the bonnet, doors and tailgate.

The roof, meanwhile, is made of exotic forged carbon-fibre, slashing yet more weight.

Even the TNGA platform is fundamentally different, sprouting far more sophisticated multi-link rear suspension instead of the stock car's torsion beam.

It's too early to throw numbers around, says Toyota Gazoo Racing's chief engineer, who oversaw the project, but the target weight should be comfortably less than 1300kg.

That’s not that light for a light-size (B-segment) hot hatch, but remember the GR Yaris comes with a traction-boosting all-wheel drive system comprising a development of the single-coupling drivetrain from the RAV4.

Uprated with extra clutch packs, the lightweight all-paw system can shuffle 100 per cent of torque to either axle and drives all four wheels in normal conditions. Drivers will also be able to choose from various modes for track work or sportier road driving, pre-arming it for different scenarios.

Feeding the clever AWD set-up with torque is a new-from-the-ground-up turbocharged 1.6-litre three-cylinder petrol engine that's been designed specifically for the hot hatch and will form the building block for other GR models.

Featuring both direct and indirect injection and plenty of undisclosed tech borrowed from motorsport, GR's first dedicated engine produces "more than 250hp" (186kW-plus) and "more than 350Nm" of torque.

Toyota GR says it is yet to fix final power outputs, so expect both of those figures to be boosted generously.
Nor have acceleration figures been finalised, but against the clock the chief engineer suggests the 0-100km/h dash will take less than six seconds. And a top speed of more than 250km/h is likely.

Those numbers will see the Toyota GR Yaris fight well above its weight in the smallest hot hatch class, which includes the Renault Clio RS, Volkswagen Polo GTI and upcoming Ford Fiesta ST. In fact, they will make it more like a rival for super-hatches like the Honda Civic Type R and discontinued Ford Focus RS.

Sadly for many, however, only a six-speed manual version will be offered and Toyota says it has no plans for a two-pedal version. Apparently there's no off-the-shelf automatic transmission – dual-clutch or otherwise – that can cope with the torque and be packaged in the small Yaris engine bay.

In the spirit of being created to appeal to purists, nor is there launch control or a drift mode.

Despite being capable of running entirely in rear-wheel drive mode, a drift mode was judged – and ultimately dismissed – by engineers as merely an unnecessary 'gimmick', because the GR Yaris is all about one thing: going very quickly indeed.

In fact, much of its early gestation involved the co-operation of Toyota’s World Rally Championship team, and a certain Tommi Makinen was said to lend a hand in its development.

Hence, the small Toyota has a pair of steel front fenders. Since many of the 25,000 GR Yaris vehicles to be built each year will end up in the hands of motorsport teams, aluminium panels were judged too expensive since drivers regularly damage them.

Reining in the over-exuberance are a set of huge front brake discs that lurk behind 18-inch alloys and are clamped by four-pot callipers. At the rear, a set of only fractionally smaller rotors are halted by two-pot callipers.

Interestingly, two versions of the Toyota GR Yaris will be available: a model developed to run on Dunlop tyres and a Performance Pack equipped model that gets Michelins and a mechanical limited-slip front and rear differential.

Toyota Australia says it will only import the base model for our market, but will consider offering the Performance Pack if there's sufficient demand.

Developed extensively on tarmac, gravel and snow roads in Japan, an ultra-cool 15-inch wheel and smaller brake package will be also be produced, but it's not planned for export markets. The same goes for optional performance parts including strut braces and lighter components, which will be offered from launch in Japan.

For our drive in Lisbon, Toyota rolled out a line of near-production prototypes for use on both track and local roads. Engineers said there was still some fine-tuning required for the suspension and all-wheel drive systems.

Appropriately, we first sampled the Toyota GR Yaris at Estoril, the former Formula 1 circuit, in a version fitted with the Performance Pack comprising twin LSDs and revised dampers.

Sadly, we can't spill the beans on the GR Yaris cabin because the prototype was largely covered up by blankets, but it's probably safe to assume that much of it will be shared with the latest family hack on which it’s based.

What we can say is that, for a hot hatch, the driver is perched far too high in the hottest ever Yaris for it to feel sporty.

That might have its advantages on the road and even on the track, where it allows you to look deeper into corners, but it feels like you're sitting on top of the car.

The good news comes as we ease out the light clutch and leave the pit lane. Toyota has nailed the weighting of the controls and the throttle response is scalpel sharp.

In fact, despite its diminished number of cylinders, the little three-pot is an absolute hero, showing little weakness down low and happy to rev out to 7000rpm.

It sounds good too, although my brain struggled to compute with the noise it emits low down in the rev-range, which is almost identical to that of the Toyota Aygo city-car sold in Europe. It certainly doesn't correspond with the pace it delivers.

Most impressive is how much traction is available, and how early you can get flat on the throttle while exiting a corner, which is a good marker of solid engineering.

One of the benchmarks for the program was Subaru's WRX STI, but this little Toyota generates far more grip from its front axle, resulting in much less speed-sapping understeer.

In normal mode, 60 per cent of torque is shuffled to the front axle, with the remaining 40 per cent going to the rear. On the circuit we drove in Track mode (50:50) and Sport mode, which shuffles 70 per cent of all torque to the rear wheels.

Strangely, in the dry at least, we couldn't detect a rear torque bias in Sport, even with provocation. Instead, you could feel the AWD system pushing all the torque back to the front wheels.

Even on track, the all-wheel drive set-up doesn't allow you to indulge in any slip angles, which is a shame. Instead – and understandably, given its motorsport brief – the GR Yaris has been set up to carry as much corner speed as possible.

Even on gravel, where the pint-size hot hatch was also developed, the AWD set-up has an uncanny ability to pull the car straight when you attempt to coax a big slide.

Back on track, we switch to a car more representative of the model we'll get in Australia. Riding on Dunlop tyres, the Toyota GR Yaris remains at home but misses out on some of that mid-corner traction. The different tyres also see them surrender their purchase a little earlier when you're pushing on.

On typical country roads, where we only drove cars without the slippery diffs, there was less opportunity to exploit the playful chassis, but it's a shame Toyota will not offer the Performance Pack on the cars we get.

There are no complaints over the big brakes that were unfazed by big stops on track and worked well at low speeds too. Carbon-ceramic rotors were considered but ruled out after engineers saw how well the steel stoppers coped.

And thanks to standard hydraulic bump stops and a sensibly calibrated suspension, the GR Yaris rides well even on sub-standard surfaces.

No doubt our roads will prove a better test, but what we can say is that the little Toyota provides plenty of confidence to push on.

In fact, the Toyota GR Yaris is so efficient at putting its power down that it's completely unfazed by damp roads or surfaces littered with leaves and general Euro winter detritus, over which it does a convincing impression of a Focus RS.

Then there's the looks. Even in camo, the wide stance and chunky body kit (with a real working diffuser) means you won't miss it.

After a day behind the wheel on the road, gravel and circuit, we can say the Toyota GR Yaris is a surprisingly mature, fully-rounded and seriously fast hot hatch.

It may be missing that final level of entertainment that a Hyundai i30N or Honda Civic Type R delivers in spades, but on some roads many might prefer the Toyota.

Notice once again that we're not comparing the little GR Yaris with its similarly-sized rivals, and not just because of its giant-killing performance.

That's because unconfirmed rumours suggest Toyota plans to charge a hefty premium for its hottest Yaris ever, which could position it deep into Golf GTI and even R territory. Depending final Australian specs, that could see it priced anywhere between $40,000 and $55,000.

That would be a shame because, as our first drive proved, Toyota's first all-wheel drive performance car in two decades is shaping up to be very convincing indeed.

How much does the 2020 Toyota GR Yaris cost?
Price: $50,000 (estimated)
Available: Late 2020
Engine: 1.6-litre turbo-petrol three-cylinder
Output: At least 186kW/350Nm
Transmission: Six-speed manual
Fuel: N/A
CO2: N/A
Safety rating: N/A