The upcoming Toyota GR Yaris has surfaced, as the Japanese
car maker invited a few select media for a quick drive in a near-production
prototype of the all-wheel drive hot hatch. As it
turns out from the early impressions of Autocar and Evo magazine, the new
Toyota GR Yaris will indeed revive the homologation special recipe, conceived
as the road-going version of Toyota’s 2021 World Rally Car, as well as the R5
racing version.
From
the first moment Toyota started teasing the upcoming GR Yaris, we knew that
they were working on something special; the new Japanese hot hatch may look
like a souped-up version of the normal city car but there are some pretty
extreme changes here. First,
it’s the three-door body; Toyota created this shell exclusively for the Gazoo
Racing model, complete with frameless doors and a 95mm lower roofline. Body
panels like the roof, tailgate, bonnet, doors and front wings are made out of
aluminum for less weight.
Then
it’s the lightweight structure underneath; the basic platform is the same with
the rest of the Yaris family, including the wheelbase, but the structure here
utilizes carbon fiber and the suspension setup ditches the rear torsion beam
for double wishbones. The end result is a body that’s not only lighter but also
stiffer and more aerodynamic. Under
the bonnet lives an all-new turbocharged 1.6-liter three-cylinder petrol
engine, which is mounted further back for better weight distribution. Toyota
opted for three cylinders instead of the traditional four-pot, partly for
homologating the 2020 R5 rally car. R5 Class cars will use three-cylinder
engines from 2020.
Naohiko
Sato, the lead engineer of the GR Yaris, claims that this is the world’s
lightest and most powerful 1.6-liter production engine. How powerful you ask?
While the final figures are still under wraps, Toyota says that it will offer
over 247 HP and 350 Nm of torque. And contrary to the
modern trends, the new Toyota GR Yaris will be offered only with a six-speed
manual transmission.
The
car’s all-wheel drive system is also new and it doesn’t feature a center
differential, using instead clutch pack diffs front and rear with three
settings: Normal (60:40 split, front-to-rear), Sport (30:70) and Track (50:50).
Toyota will offer the option of limited-slip differentials front and rear as
well. The new GR Yaris will be the first true
performance car Toyota has developed entirely in-house for almost two decades.
Production is also going to be far less limited that the previous Yaris GRMN,
which was basically a skunkworks project. The official reveal of the Toyota GR
Yaris will take place at the Tokyo Auto Salon on January 10.
