Sales of Toyota Yaris GR hot hatch hit the roof

Fans have been eagerly awaiting the arrival of the first Toyota-bred performance car in 20 years, but there is a catch.

Toyota’s all-new hot hatch is hot property.

A total of 560 Toyota Yaris GRs were snapped up on the first day of pre-sales — more than half the initial allocation of stock.

The more than $22m worth of sales were helped along by generous subsidies from Toyota Australia totalling more than $14 million.

Toyota sold more than 500 of its new Yaris GR hot hatches in the first day.

The subsidies have reduced the price of the first 1000 vehicles to just $39,950 drive-away. Each vehicle has had roughly $14,000 knocked off the price via a $10,000 discount on the sticker price and waiving all the on-road costs, which include registration, insurance, stamp duty and dealer fees.

The rush can also be explained by the fact that once the first 1000 vehicles are sold the Yaris GR will revert back to its $49,500 plus on-roads price.

Toyota is offering a discount of about $14,000 on the first 1000 cars.

NSW and Queensland drivers were the keenest to get into the GR with 226 and 124 sold to residents in those states respectively.

Toyota Australia sales and marketing chief, Sean Hanley, is ecstatic with the result for the first all-Toyota sports car developed in more than 20 years.

“We set out to ignite the pure performance sports-car market — and GR Yaris has done exactly that,” says Mr Hanley.

“It has the heart and soul of a rally car with motorsport-inspired credentials that will deliver exhilarating performance, on or off the track,” he says.

The Yaris GR has some serious performance.

The Yaris GR is powered by a turbocharged 1.6-litre three-cylinder engine with 200kW and 370Nm matched to a six-speed manual transmission and all-wheel drive.

The three-door hot hatch weighs less than 1300 kilograms, can reach 100km/h in 5.2 seconds, and has ties to Toyota’s World Rally Championship entrant.

Toyota isn’t pitching the GR against similarly sized rivals such as the Ford Fiesta ST and Volkswagen Polo GTI but says its performance rivals the circa-$50,000 Honda Civic Type R and Volkswagen Golf R.

Enthusiasts will love the GR’s turbo engine, manual transmission and all-wheel drive combo.

The Toyota GR value is even better when compared with the standard Yaris. A top-of-the-range Yaris hybrid will set back buyers about $37,000 drive-away.

One of the first eager buyers was Aussie Rally champion Harry Bates.

“I was lucky enough to be one of the first Australians to experience the GR Yaris when pre-production prototype models were tested in Portugal last year,” says Mr Bates.

“The second I drove it, I wanted one. I can’t wait to pick mine up, drive it around — and get it on the track. Dad won three of his four Australian championships driving a Celica GT-FOUR. I missed out on that era, so this is my chance to have a rally car for the road — brand new!”

This isn’t the first time a Toyota performance car sales have gone bonkers. In 2019 the new Toyota Supra — which was co-developed with BMW — sold out in a matter of minutes, albeit with a much smaller allocation.