In a bid to create a link between its WRC car and road-going line-up, Toyota has developed a low-volume, slightly unhinged 210bhp version of the Yaris. We drive a near production-ready prototype
YOSHINORI SASAKI, THE CHIEF ENGINEER ON YARIS GRMN, tells a lovely story about the birth of Toyota’s first hot hatch for at least a generation. During the GT86 project, for which he was assistant chief engineer to Tetsuya Tada, he and Tada were testing said coupe in Wales when a small hot hatch latched onto their tail. ‘I don’t know what car it was, a Clio, a Polomaybe, but I drove faster and faster and still couldn’t shake them off,’ says Sasaki. ‘Whenwe finally got to a village we realised it was old lady driving. I said right then [laughing], we must make just such a car!’
It’s an unintentional reminder that Toyota’s recent history isn’t exactly crammed with classic hot hatches. But now we have ‘new’ Toyota. It may have taken a while for bossman Akio Toyoda’s enthusiasm for performance cars to filter down through the ranks, but this Yaris – which will be the first GRMNmodel to go on sale in Europe, the sixth in Japan –won’t stand alone, as there’s the spiritual successors to the Supra and theMR2 to look forward to at the very least. GRMN, by the way, stands for ‘Gazoo Racing tuned by Meister of the Nürburgring’. We kid you not.
It’s at the Ring, specifically Toyota’s test garage there, where we meet a pre-production Yaris GRMN and the small team behind the project. Toyota sees this car as a bridge between the WRC Yaris and the current road-going models, a bit of good old fashioned leveraging, if you like, in a modern era where limited homologation requirements mean we’re starved of competition bred machinery for the road. Alas, being front-wheel drive the Yaris GRMN has little in common with the WRC entry. It’s also soon clear that this is not a car to make a profit on,
هذه القصة مأخوذة من طبعة October 2017 من Evo.
ابدأ النسخة التجريبية المجانية من Magzter GOLD لمدة 7 أيام للوصول إلى آلاف القصص المتميزة المنسقة وأكثر من 9,000 مجلة وصحيفة.
بالفعل مشترك ? تسجيل الدخول
هذه القصة مأخوذة من طبعة October 2017 من Evo.
ابدأ النسخة التجريبية المجانية من Magzter GOLD لمدة 7 أيام للوصول إلى آلاف القصص المتميزة المنسقة وأكثر من 9,000 مجلة وصحيفة.
بالفعل مشترك? تسجيل الدخول
BEST BUYS BMW M CARS
THE PERFORMANCE CAR LANDSCAPE WOULD HAVE looked very different over the last five decades without BMW. Its M division, founded in 1972, has produced some of the best driver’s cars ever to hit the road, and in the process has provided a stream of benchmark models for its rivals to chase. In recent years, stricter emissions regulations, downsizing and electrification have seen some of those rival cars falter, yet by and large BMW’s M machines have remained strong. In fact, some rank among the greatest the department has made think of the eCoty-winning M2 CS and M5 CS while others are the only options worth recommending in their respective segments. Price tags have risen with performance, however, putting those latest offerings out of reach for many, but the marque’s popularity means there are numerous earlier M models available on the second-hand market for far more attainable figures. Here are four of our favourites.
TYRE 2024 TEST
Want to fit the very best tyres to your performance car? The annual evo Tyre Test identifies the cream of the current crop
HONDA ACCORD TYPE R
A liberal sprinkling of Honda Type R fairy dust on the late-'90s Accord produced an unlikely evo icon and a genuine performance bargain
TOY STORY
Where best to store some of Toyota’s most prized and valuable racing superstars? Under the wind tunnel at its Cologne HO, of course...
POWER PLAY
It develops 819bhp. It has no turbochargers, no hybrid assistance. Ferrari describes it as the most complete GT it's ever made. And it’s so proud of its mighty V12 engine it’s named the whole car after it. This is the 12 Cilindri
THE FIRST SAMURAIS
Japan has been responsible for many of our favourite driver's cars of recent decades, but their ancestors are often much less well known. We take a look at where the big manufacturers began their performance car journeys
DEFINITELY. NO MAYBE
Three Japanese performance icons - Lexus LFA, Subaru Impreza 22B and Nissan GT-R. Over three days on some of our favourite roads we explore what makes each uniquely thrilling, but also the car culture that unites them
1V3.0
F1, P1... and now W1. The next chapter in McLaren's Ultimate Series is the British firm's challenger to the forthcoming new Ferrari hypercar and a £2million, 1257bhp, hybrid-powered, technical tour de force
Thornley Kelham European RS
One man’s dream to build the perfect Porsche 911 has resulted inthis aaticMously restored and enhanced classic. We delve into the details and take it for a drive
Bentley Continental GT Speed
The new Continental GT is the most powerful Bentley ever, and the beginning of anew plug-in hybrid era for Crewe. But is it still a benchmark grand tourer?
