Yaris Cross GR Sport Hybrid makes me Cross

No amount of GR badges can give the Toyota Yaris Cross GR Sport Hybrid the performance boost that Toyota claims it has.

The Yaris Cross GR Sport Hybrid has got a 1.5-litre making 67kW and 120Nm of torque

The cliche about books, judgments and covers (which must annoy the hell out of the hard-working graphic artists who design book covers) really should also apply to cars and badges.

Obviously, I’m not talking about the ones that tell you who made your car; a Porsche is a Porsche even if it’s an SUV, apparently, and a Rolls-Royce is still a Rolls even if it’s an electric vehicle. No I mean the little addendum badges, the ones that are supposed to suggest extra added spice and sportiness.

Originally, an M badge on a BMW meant that you’d bought a proper, fire-breathing one and that you were a man, or woman, of unusual wealth and bravado. Today, you can buy an M Sport version, which basically means a nicer steering wheel, darker interior trims, a body kit and lots of M badges. An “S Line” will put similar icing on your Audi cake, but in neither case does it mean you’ve bought one that’s better, or more exciting, to drive.

This seems like a very German-car thing to do - they love gouging money out of wallets with optional flim flam, and are very good at it - and less like something Toyota, the sensible shoe of car companies, would try.

Not so long ago, however, Toyota started wheeling out its Gazoo Racing, or GR, brand, producing genuinely buzzy and occasionally brilliant versions of cars like the 86, Yaris, Supra and Corolla.

The Yaris Cross GR Sport Hybrid has been marketed as a ‘thrilling’ GR offering

According to Toyota, “every vehicle with the Gazoo Racing (GR) badge has been thoroughly tested, honed and perfected through extensive testing at racetracks across the globe”.

Having driven and loved the GR Yaris and GR86 in particular, I totally bought this, which is why I was quite excited when I went to pick up the new Yaris Cross GR Sport Hybrid, which, it turns out, is the equivalent of finding out that someone has taken the dust jacket for Jaws and sneakily pulled it over the cover of Sense and Sensibility.

The $49,500 GR Yaris is a properly punchy little sports car with a manual gearbox, a hugely playful nature and the slightly angry attitude of a small dog that’s accidentally eaten someone’s Ritalin. Its 1.6-litre loves to rev and produces 200kW and 370Nm, making it the world’s most powerful three-cylinder production engine.

Obviously, I was looking forward to a week of freaky fun with this GR-badged offering, right up until the moment I saw it and recalled that the Yaris Cross makes me cross, because it is a jacked up, super-sized version of the Yaris designed for people whose favourite film is Honey, I Blew Up the Kid.

Toyota calls this GR Sport Hybrid version of this oversized shopping trolley “thrilling”, and I had enough belief in the Gazoo Racing brand to believe it was at least possible. What the GR version gets you is some black plastic, a different rear diffuser, red calipers on the brakes peeking out of new 18-inch wheels, and a revised suspension that also lowers the car by 10mm. And lots of GR badges, plus sportier seats.

The Yaris Cross GR Sport Hybrid has the power to shout and whine

What it does not get you, vitally, is any kind of performance boost for the Yaris Cross’s ho-hum hybrid powertrain, and that is disappointing, because that means it’s got a 1.5-litre making 67kW and 120Nm of torque. I’ll just wait here while you read those figures again, and marvel at Toyota’s hubris in putting the word “Sport” on this car, let alone the GR badge. To be fair, two motor generators on the front axle add the “Hybrid” to the description and take total power output to 85kW.

To be brutal, however, that “power” is channelled through a Constantly Variable Transmission that basically strangles any chance it ever had of being exciting, or even interesting. The engine moans, groans, shouts and whines, as if you’re torturing it, which is funny, because it felt like it was torturing me.

I can put up with a noisy car if that shouting is actually producing something, but here it is all sound and fury signifying nothing. All CVTs annoy me, but this Yaris Cross one really belongs at the bottom of the pile for hateful droningness and fun killing.

Then there is that revised suspension, which is meant to improve road holding and, theoretically, make a not-sporty crossover miniature SUV more fun to drive. But it doesn’t, it just makes the ride truly awful, crashy and frustrating. Driving it on broken city roads is a good way to put yourself in a bad mood.

In short, then, I wasn’t just disappointed by the Toyota Yaris Cross GR Sport Hybrid, I was shocked, and I felt like I’d been taken for a ride by the GR badges. If this thing was developed on and perfected through extensive testing at race tracks around the globe, I’m Max Verstappen (and considering how much I detest the man, that seems unlikely).

And then I saw the price of this car, which starts at $35,840, and I really had to have a little lie down. If I was Toyota, I wouldn’t put that price on the cover of the Yaris Cross brochure.