Toyota GR Yaris (2024 – ) review

“It’s just a Yaris,” grinned the Toyota delivery man dropping the car off with me for this test. I mean, he’s right. It is just a Yaris. But if you want an affordable, reliable and efficient hybrid Toyota for pottering around in this isn’t it. In fact, the only parts it shares with the regular Yaris are the wing mirrors, the aerial and the rear lights! Geeks like me adore the fact Toyota went completely mad with the GR, splicing together two different platforms to create the four-wheel drive one beneath this car, creating a bespoke three-door body with a lowered carbon roof and packing it with motorsport-derived tech. None of this comes cheap, the Aero Performance one you see here over 50 grand. For a Yaris. Fuel consumption, tax and insurance are all going to hit you hard in the wallet, too. None of which will concern the target audience one bit. Indeed, apply a bit of ‘man maths’ and you could argue the high residual values shown by those for sale on Autotrader make it a reasonable investment. But who am I trying to kid…

The GR Yaris is built with a rallying mindset, meaning it’s had constant upgrades over its life based on the mantra of “develop, race, break, fix” in the hands of professional lunatics racing them at 100mph-plus through forests in dust, mud and snow alike. You’d hope that translates to a reliable car in more normal usage, and Toyota now stands by all vehicles in its range with 10-year warranty if you commit to main dealer servicing.

If the GR Yaris has lane-keeping assistance the interventions are subtle enough I didn’t notice them, the feedback through the wheel more about the tyres sniffing out the cambers, surface changes and grip levels according to how hard you are on the power. An adjustable four-wheel drive system then puts that to the road according to the available traction, the GR basically going as hard on a wet road as it does on a dry one. Just like a rally car. Which is, I suppose, safety of sorts. I should probably dock a star for Toyota’s decision to mount the handbrake vertically and next to the steering wheel in a none-too-subtle invitation to give it a good yank any time you need to make a sharp turn. But only a complete idiot would succumb to that kind of temptation…

Want a comfortable, practical Yaris? Guess what, this isn’t it, either. Rally cars don’t need rear doors, so Toyota custom-built the body for the GR without them. Figuring that would mean nobody would want the faff of accessing the back seats it also dropped the roofline to make it more aerodynamic. The rear bench is usable still, but only the passenger seat has a proper tilt-and-slide mechanism and the novelty will very quickly wear off if you intend to use it for the school run or as a family runabout. The boot is, frankly pitiful as well. None of which matters, my interest more piqued by Toyota responding to criticism of the seats being mounted too high and dropping them by 25mm as part of the 2024 update, the better for feeling at one with the car. And on twisty backroads the GR Yaris has a tiny footprint, making it much more exploitable than a fat sports car like a Porsche 911. Indeed, out in the real world the Porsche wouldn’t see which way the Yaris went, even with double the power. Those incremental updates Toyota has made have, meanwhile, robbed the GR Yaris of some of the rally-bred suppleness I so enjoyed in the first-gen version. You can push it a bit harder as a result, and I get where it’s coming from. And it’s not unbearable. But, my money, I might be tempted to save a bit of cash and get a pre-loved version of the original, even with its higher seats and more basic interior.

Toyota originally offered the GR Yaris in Convenience and Circuit trims, the latter with all the rally-inspired four-wheel drive hardware and special driver modes controlling it. Little surprise this is the one all the target audience wanted, and since the 2024 update all GRs are Circuit spec. Indeed, Toyota then went even further with some very expensive special editions carrying the names of its championship-winning drivers and then this Aero Performance, complete with extra vents, scoops and a very silly rear wing. Which I absolutely adore, and takes me right back to my misspent former years razzing round in Subarus and Evos. The Aero Performance package adds quite a bit to the price, and tips you over the threshold for the expensive car tax supplement, too. But what the hell, I say. In for a penny.

Sound the geek klaxon but when I learned Toyota increased the turbocharged 1.5-litre engine’s power to 280 horsepower with the 2024 update my heart leapt with joy. Not for the increased performance. But for the ‘if you know, you know’ nod to the hero cars the Yaris references, the JDM imports brought in from Japan back in the day all (officially) abiding by the 280 horsepower limit as part of what was termed a gentlemen’s agreement between the manufacturers at that time. Now as then, this kind of power is way more relevant to what you can responsibly use and enjoy than the much bigger numbers on everything from supercars to electric family crossovers these days. It’s also much more exciting from the driving seat, the delayed gratification of the turbo boosting up way more fun than the instantaneous thrust of electric motors. This, combined with pin-sharp steering, a satisfyingly positive shift on the manual gearbox and perfectly positioned pedals are all exactly as I remember from those 90s rally replicas. And just as fun now as it was then. Just keep your damn hand away from that handbrake…