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Written by Stephen Dobie
Meet the most exciting Toyota Yaris, um, ever. Excluding the madcap World Rally car, naturally. This is the Yaris GRMN, Toyota"s rival to the Ford Fiesta ST, you"d assume.Only it"s not. "The Fiesta ST is a very good car but is actually positioned a bit lower in that class," says project leader Stijn Peeters. "We want to be on top of that. We want to be more radical."Instead, he cites cars like the Peugeot Sport 208 GTI and Renault Clio Trophy as key targets. He"s promising class-leading power from the Yaris, which has a 1.8-litre supercharged petrol engine driving its front wheels though a six-speed manual gearbox. The engine comes with Lotus engineering credibility and is unique in a class dominated by turbocharged cars.Peak power hasn"t yet been revealed, but reckon on around 220bhp Peeters doesn"t count the more powerful Mini John Cooper Works as a rival, oddly while he tells us it"ll be the quickest in its class, too. So 0-62mph should take a smidge over six seconds with the top speed around 140mph. The car is still in development, so firm figures are yet to be finalised.That"ll make it faster than Toyota"s own GT86, too, a car whose talented development team is also overseeing the Yaris. The hatchback even borrows the coupe"s titchy steering wheel, though here it sits ahead of a far more bespoke bucket seat, made by the same people behind the LFA"s seats. We"ve sat in it, and it feels superb.The Yaris GRMN won"t weigh much more than 1,100kg, though, making it lighter than even the three-cylinder Fiesta. Alongside the supercharged engine, Peeters is promising one of the most visceral and responsive hot hatches you can buy. Its standard limited-slip differential, provided by Torsen, will help.
Date written: 9 Mar 2017
More of this article on the Top gear website
ID: 7002
Meet the most exciting Toyota Yaris, um, ever. Excluding the madcap World Rally car, naturally. This is the Yaris GRMN, Toyota"s rival to the Ford Fiesta ST, you"d assume.Only it"s not. "The Fiesta ST is a very good car but is actually positioned a bit lower in that class," says project leader Stijn Peeters. "We want to be on top of that. We want to be more radical."Instead, he cites cars like the Peugeot Sport 208 GTI and Renault Clio Trophy as key targets. He"s promising class-leading power from the Yaris, which has a 1.8-litre supercharged petrol engine driving its front wheels though a six-speed manual gearbox. The engine comes with Lotus engineering credibility and is unique in a class dominated by turbocharged cars.Peak power hasn"t yet been revealed, but reckon on around 220bhp Peeters doesn"t count the more powerful Mini John Cooper Works as a rival, oddly while he tells us it"ll be the quickest in its class, too. So 0-62mph should take a smidge over six seconds with the top speed around 140mph. The car is still in development, so firm figures are yet to be finalised.That"ll make it faster than Toyota"s own GT86, too, a car whose talented development team is also overseeing the Yaris. The hatchback even borrows the coupe"s titchy steering wheel, though here it sits ahead of a far more bespoke bucket seat, made by the same people behind the LFA"s seats. We"ve sat in it, and it feels superb.The Yaris GRMN won"t weigh much more than 1,100kg, though, making it lighter than even the three-cylinder Fiesta. Alongside the supercharged engine, Peeters is promising one of the most visceral and responsive hot hatches you can buy. Its standard limited-slip differential, provided by Torsen, will help.
Date written: 9 Mar 2017
More of this article on the Top gear website
ID: 7002
