2021 Toyota Yaris GR Rallye review: Pocket rocket brings the heat

This new small car is a massive change of direction for the Japanese brand that sells one in every five new cars in Australia.

Toby Hagon

3 min read

May 20, 2021 - 10:27AM

Toyota is known for making reliable, well-equipped and affordable cars in all shapes and sizes. But its newest machine adds a mountain of spice to its local line-up.

Here are five things you need to know about the Toyota GR Yaris Rallye.

he Toyota GR Yaris Rallye is a weapon on the track.

IT’S A VERY DIFFERENT YARIS

It may borrow the Yaris name but there’s not much of that around town Yaris in the GR Rallye, the latest Toyota hot hatch – and the return of a competition-inspired performance hero for Toyota. GR denotes Gazoo Racing, Toyota’s performance sub-brand set to spread its way across sports cars, SUVs and even off-roaders. For starters, the GR Rallye (and the regular GR Yaris) is a three-door versus the five doors of the garden variety Yaris. And the GR gets widened wheel arches and a sculpted bonnet. Toyota says only three part numbers carry over between the GR and a regular Yaris: headlights, tail lights and the coloured plastic caps covering the mirrors.

All-wheel drive and a punchy turbo engine are a hit.

RALLYE ADDS MORE TO GR

The Rallye is a play on the marketing link between Toyota’s rally contender (on global and Australian rally scenes) and the road car. But the Rallye also gets more than a regular GR Yaris. Lighter forged alloy wheels shod in grippier Michelin rubber are the at the pointy end of the list. There’s also some red paint on the brake calipers. Look carefully and you’ll notice additional holes in the front bumper otherwise shared with the GR Yaris to feed air to the brakes. Red stitching completes the go-fast sales pitch inside.

The GR Yaris is a manual only car.

SMALL ENGINE, BIG PERFORMANCE

The engine is identical to that in the regular GR Yaris. The 1.6-litre three-cylinder makes 200kW, more than an Aussie Ford or Holden V8 pumped out in the late 1990s. And while it’s down on the torque of a V8, the impressively light (1280kg) body means it pulls hard from low in the rev range. A notchy six-speed manual is the only choice but adds to the driver focus. The tiny triple cylinder finds an extra burst of grunt just beyond 4000rpm, roaring its way towards its electronic cutout with the sort of enthusiasm of a proper hot hatch. There’s some fake engine sound created boosted the speakers, but enough mechanical rortiness to keep the ear drums content.

The Rallye is priced from about $60,000 drive-away

HARD AND FAST

Key to the Rallye’s talents are how it scurries around corners. It’s impressive stuff, helped by the all-wheel drive system with tricky limited slip differentials to reduce the chance of wheel spin. You can muck around with how much drive is sent forward or aft; in Normal mode 60 per cent is sent to the front, but dial up Sport and 70 per cent heads rearwards. Strap yourself in for a firm ride, though, because the Rallye stiffens things from the already firm GR Yaris. Plus there’s loads of thrumming and roaring from the tyres, requiring an extra few notches on the eight-speaker JBL sound system to drown out the road noise.

THE RALLYE NUMBERS GAME

The GR Yaris Rallye only recently went on sale but has already had a price rise. Blame it on excitement … Toyota offered the first 200 for $56,200, but since then they’ve been retailing for the best part of $60K. Some early adopters were disappointed to learn Toyota would not be limiting supply of the Rallye. Sure, there’s currently a waiting list out to 2022, but Toyota says it “will allocate this car according to the natural demand”. In other words, despite a numbered plaque for each car, the numbers will climb as high as the demand requires. So don’t expect to make a profit from having a rare car.