Toyota GR Yaris slides around in Goodwood preview

The Toyota GR Yaris is a WRC-inspired road car, with a special three-door body with a sloping roof created to boost the big T’s chances in the World Rally Championship. It’s the closest thing to rally homologation heroes from the past such as the Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution and Subaru Impreza WRX.

The GR Yaris will make its Goodwood debut at the Goodwood SpeedWeek on October 16-18, and here’s the hot hatch getting acquainted with the Goodwood Motor Circuit in West Sussex, UK. The rally car has a rally man behind the wheel in Kris Meeke, who drove for the factory Toyota Gazoo Racing WRT in the 2019 WRC season. Watch the Brit driver slide the Japanese car around in the video above, showing off the agility of the hot Yaris over some hairpin turns.

One of the most interesting performance cars to come out from Japan in a long time, the GR Yaris is moved by a G16E-GTS 1.6 litre turbocharged three-cylinder engine, which produces 272 PS and 370 Nm of torque. Yup, all that, from a three pot. Drive goes through a six-speed manual gearbox to an AWD system with twin Torsen locking differentials.

Will we ever get to see the GR Yaris in Malaysian showrooms? Local distributor UMW Toyota Motor (UMWT) posted a photo of the GR Yaris on its Facebook page last month, and while there was no mention when, or if indeed it is coming, UMWT almost never posts anything about a Toyota that isn’t going to be sold here, and even when it does, the company usually moves quickly to confirm that the car isn’t coming. Was it a very early teaser? Fingers crossed.

But given the amount of bespoke parts the GR Yaris carries (the regular European Yaris is only available as a five-door and comes with torsion beam rear suspension; the GR uses double-wishbones), it will not come cheap. Expect the sticker price to be around the level of the FK8 Honda Civic Type R, which was going for RM330,000 via the official channel. More on the GR Yaris here.

GALLERY: Toyota GR Yaris