Toyota GR Yaris - It's Not All Brilliant 1 Feb 2021
I had the pleasure of borrowing a Toyota GR Yaris for a few days during the media campaign back in November. Typically you don't look forward to driving most performance cars in the winter all that much, not in the UK at least because the road conditions are less than ideal. Farmers are in and out of fields dragging dirt on to the tarmac, decaying leaves often intrude on an apex and it's generally wet and greasy and that’s before the council have dusted your favourite B-road with a smattering of salt.
That being said, if ever there were the perfect car to test in these conditions it was the Toyota GR Yaris, a platform designed from the ground up to literally be a WRC winning car, that is until the program was scrapped and Toyota were left with an utterly brilliant road car with disproportionate capabilities compared to anything else in it’s category.
If you’re interested in just how good the GR Yaris really is you can watch the first drive review video right here:
However this article is to discuss its few imperfections, the unaddressed nuances that I only discovered right at the end of my few days in the car - like the headlights.
The GR Yaris is 98% different to the conventional Yaris, sharing only the wing mirrors and the front and rear lights on the outside, of which I wish they didn’t. Having not had the opportunity, I didn’t drive the GR Yaris in the dark until the last day I had it and it turns out…the headlights suck.
You see, in a standard Yaris (of which these headlights are shared) the car wasn’t intended to cover ground anything like the GR Yaris is capable of doing, in which case the weak headlights would perhaps be acceptable. On a dark wet night when the GR is in it’s element however, picking apart a B-road like you quite simply wouldn’t believe, you find yourself having to back-off on occasion in order to reassess the road ahead thanks to the lack of ample illumination.
This is a comparison I never - ever - thought I would draw but I spent 10,000 miles of ownership with a McLaren 675LT and it too had sub-standard lighting for it’s performance. At night you just couldn’t use the car’s potential and yet, just like the Yaris, come daylight all is forgotten and that B-road once again becomes your favourite playground. Being designed as a rally car perhaps a set of Hella lamps mounted on the bonnet wouldn’t go a miss?
At 257bhp and 266lb ft torque the motor in the GR Yaris is the most power dense three cylinder engine ever to be fitted in a production car so, what about the sound?
I’m reluctant to criticise this too much because it is after all a 3-cylinder turbo, what level of sonic exotica can one expect from such a unit? I actually think it sounds better inside than out which really is what counts but, it’s the startup that lets it down the most - when the car ‘comes to life’ it doesn’t exactly suggest an exciting experience lies ahead and yet - it probably does! It develops a curious higher pitched note at the top of the rev band that is a combination of sheer induction noise and all three cylinders giving everything it’s got to propel the little Yaris to impressive speeds down a road.
And if that road were to be wet and dirty you’d soon notice the lack of rear windscreen wiper, something all flat-backed cars benefit from as the turbulence generated from this design has the inherent trait of slapping dirt all up the rear of the car, it would be nice to be Abel to wipe the rear windscreen to use that rear view mirror. Not a big deal unless it’s really dirty ousted to be honest but, on this day, it was.
Pedal placement - this one has me confused. The GR Yaris is developed, distinctly, as a driver focused car with an emphasis on interacting with its components to make it an engaging driving experience and yet, the pedal placement for heel toe is annoyingly compromised. The throttle is so far from the brake you can slip your foot between the two. In order to rev match you are quite literally using your toe to break as you pivot your heel over to the throttle for a quick blip, old school style. It is entirely possible of course, just not the ergonomics you might expect from a car so unapologetically designed for ‘the drivers’ out there. Nothing a little pedal adjustment couldn’t fix I imagine!
Lastly, the seats - and I say ‘seats’ but when you get in them they feel more like chairs. It could just be personal preference but the driving position feels a little too high, the seats themselves could be ok but looking at the brackets they are attached to the mounting points look quite tall resulting in a cockpit that would perhaps welcome the addition of a set of bucket seats?
All of the above being said however, each point is an easy - dare I say it - fun fix! Perhaps with the exception of the rear window wiper? I think the GR Yaris lends its self to being a fantastic project car and no doubt we will see the tuner scene developing some interesting upgrades and performance gains in the coming months so, watch this space!
Overall the Toyota GR Yaris is one of the highlight cars of 2020, a homologation special the likes of which this industry never thought we’d see again. You can get in to this special little car for £300p/m - a car that offers a truly grin inducing driving experience at an affordable price considering it’s performance and, on a cold November day when you’re dodging the debris of tractors and trailers - this little pocket rocket is a car I’d choose to enjoy a drive in over any of it’s rivals and even some of the higher powered sports cars out there too. It’s that good!