The editors of Auto Review are beaming when the Toyota GR Yaris is mentioned. Frankenstein’s little monster – it’s made up of Yaris and Corolla parts – is fabulously good. So how much better could it be? We’ll see next week, when Toyota presents a heavily tuned version of the GR Yaris.
The Toyota GR Yaris is a true homologation special. It was built to compete in the World Rally Championship, even though that party was unfortunately cancelled. Toyota got (and will) all hands together with the super sporty Yaris. The 261 horsepower, four-wheel drive cart is fantastic. It therefore has little to do with the regular five-door Yaris. Its chassis is a mix of Yaris and Corolla, topped by a wide and low three-door body. If you stir the manual gearbox quickly enough, the GR Yaris can reach 100 km/h in just over 5 seconds. On the autobahn, the Japanese cake is only finished at 230 km/h.
‘Fully tuned’ Toyota GR Yaris at Tokyo Auto Salon
So how can Toyota make that spicy recipe even hotter? We’ll get to see it next week. Then Toyota unveils an even more extreme version of the GR Yaris at the Tokyo Auto Salon. “Fully tuned”, the brand calls the new variant. And we can see that in this vague teaser photo. On the hood is a large air vent and at the back we see a rear wing suspended from above. Just like the new Porsche 911 GT3, but a few sizes bigger. What the further changes are, Toyota will keep under wraps.
Toyota GR GT3 Concept with Le Mans powertrain
It is also interesting that the manufacturer will put a spectacular study model in the spotlight next week. It is called Toyota GR GT3 Concept and is probably a harbinger of a new race car. On the accompanying teaser plate you can see that the car clearly has traits of the Mercedes-AMG GT and the Mercedes-Benz AMG Vision Gran Turismo, with an extremely long hood and a short butt. Power may be provided by the 3.5-litre twin-turbo V6 and electric motors of the Le Mans-winning Toyota GR010 Hybrid (combined power of nearly 950 hp).