Toyota GR Yaris – design
Flawed packaging is derived from its homologation nature, but key touchpoints have been extremely well thought out.
The GR Yaris’s bespoke nature is exemplified by its exterior design, as despite sharing lighting and door mirrors with the standard Yaris, it looks as specialised on the road as any motorsport-derived GT3 or McLaren special. Beyond just lacking rear doors, the GR Yaris’s key difference to its more pedestrian cousin is the lowered roofline and shorn rear end, giving the GR some brilliant angles and far more aggression.
This is played on by an even wider set of arches front and rear, with a front end that looks like it’s been taken straight out of a JDM tuner’s styling catalogue. Sure, there are some odd angles and weird lines, but the effect looks as loco as the driving experience, and all without additional wings and aero devices that we’re sure will eventually appear in future iterations.
The overriding feeling with the GR Yaris is that it’s something really quite special. A fantastic narrow-minded focus on performance and driver engagement permeates every bit of the GR, and its design does nothing to erode that.
From the outside, the changes from Gen 1 to Gen 2 GR Yaris aren’t immediately obvious. Keen eyes can spot the extra cooling measures at the front and the apertures to feed them, and at the rear the fog, reversing and high-mounted brake lights have all been repositioned, the latter partly to make it easier for tuners to fit aftermarket spoilers.
There’s also an extra opening in the rear bumper, partly for cooling the e2xhaust and partly to reduce drag. But the changes beneath the surface run much deeper than simple facelift fare and add up to a car that feels a step on from an already brilliant modern performance car.
Toyota didn’t need to do a lot to change the Yaris: it was already a runaway success. But it says a lot about Gazoo Racing’s internal philosophy that it has applied such a fine-tooth comb to the Yaris and created a better car than ever.
