Toyota Yaris XP210 Petrol GR Yaris (2020-2026)

I’ve found my favourite small hot hatch. That’s a fact. The updated GR Yaris brings a host of improvements without trying to reinvent what made the first-generation car so successful. Instead, Toyota has studied data from existing owners and refined the car in every meaningful way. Firstly, power has been increased to 221kW and 400Nm, which… Read more

helps pull you out of the lower rev range with greater ease.

There are also improvements to interior ergonomics and visibility, alongside better cooling thanks to larger openings in the front bumper and a water-jet spray for the intercooler.

The biggest change, however, is the introduction of an eight-speed torque-converter automatic. I was sceptical at first. As a massive fan of the first-generation manual transmission, I was shocked when Toyota announced an automatic version of this rally-homologation vehicle.

After covering a few hundred kilometres with this transmission, I was converted. It’s a no-nonsense gearbox with all the essentials and, most importantly, an inverted manual mode—push up on the gear stick to shift down, and pull back to shift up.

The plastic flappy paddles may not feel premium, but they’re snappy and firm in operation. Although I’d still prefer a manual, this auto provides an alternative driving experience the manual simply can’t: effortless commuting.

You don’t have to give your left leg a workout in heavy traffic, and when you’re out on the open road, the gearbox delivers exactly what you ask of it. It shifts rapidly, won’t automatically upshift when you hit the limiter, and feels akin to a sequential gearbox you’d find in the real Yaris WRC car.

Sure, it’s tiny in its proportions, making it better suited as an exciting second car rather than your daily driver. But what a second car it would be: capable, quick, engaging—and offering an experience no other car on the market delivers for under $100,000.

Toyota GR Yaris GR-Four – Great little car, actually fits a lot in the back considering its small size my partner and I went camping in mine and we fitted gazebo tents and everything else in the rear area. Very fast but also very economical car

Need for Speed? – I purchased the Toyota Yaris GR Rallye. Number 85 of 200 in Australia. This little pocket rocket will blow your socks off! It has three modes: Regular, sport and rally. To be honest, unless you were doing mountain driving and the speed limit was over 80km regular packs enough punch and sport is rarely used. I don't require the rear seats so… Read more

they're folded down giving me a huge boot. I drive daily to work but as my drive is mostly highway, I don't mind the mandatory 6 speed manual gears. I love the look. Especially the rear end which really does look like a rally car. If I were to fault one thing, it would be the seat has no memory function. As it's a coupe, you do need to move the seat sometimes and I find it difficult to get it right again. With a price tag of near on $60,000, it's not for everyone but if your looking for power and handling, this is the car for you. That is if you can lay your hands on one.

Little beast of a car – I was one of the people to jump on the special offer provided by Toyota for the first 1,000 GR Yarises at $39,900. For that money I think this car is pretty damn amazing, especially when the top-end "normal" Yaris is almost the same price. I am not a huge car person, my main and daily driver for the last 13 years was another Yaris (1.5L 2007 YRS)… Read more

which I liked and have reviewed some years ago. I have also driven higher-end cars for an extended period of time to compare the GR Yaris to, these cars include: 2013 BMW X5 , 2017 VW Golf TSI, 2015 Huyndai Tucson, 2018 Tesla Model S. Still moving into a 200kW hot-hatch, that supposedly has the most amount of power to weight ratio in a production car, as your daily was/is a bit of leap. Maybe this is a good thing as you get to read an average-car-person review of a car for petrol heads. The very first impression was it feels like a hybrid of BMW X5 and Tesla Model S - a bit of a strange mix.

The looks: I really like it, it's in the sport car territory but not enough for people to be actually looking at you. The front with it's wide bottom grille feels like someone put a mouthguard into a Corolla. I got the all black version, it only comes in 3 variations: white with black roof, red with a black a roof, and of course black with a black roof. The reason the roof is always black is because it's carbon fiber, apparently to reduce the weight of the car. I've added some pictures that can be seen at the bottom of the review.

The interior: Most definitely doesn't feel like a Yaris. The material on the doors (is it suede?), the plastic dashboard, the steering wheel, and the seats feel very much on the higher end - similar to that of Tesla Model S.

The one thing that doesn't look great (and is laggy at times) is the centre screen. An Ipad from 5 years ago looks better and probably works faster than what they have here. It's a bit pixelated and sometimes randomly becomes unresponsive and restarts itself. Strange that in 2020 they would have such a crappy touch display and considering that some other brands.. cough cough Tesla has such an awesome one. This screen also takes up a lot of road-viewing real estate, I'd prefer to have it much lower. You can see from one of my pictures that placing a dashcam basically covers all the viewing space to the left. The aircon below the screen is a nice touch though, looks good and simple to use even while driving.

I do like the analog speedometer and small display where the wheel is. It’s simple and the small digital display is informative, I find myself looking at it more so than the centre one. It would probably be enough for me without the large centre one but I guess that’s not the current trend.

The number of compartments for storage is pretty low, you have horizontal dashboard under the screen, some cup holders in the doors and between the seats but after driving for more than two weeks it seems like it's just enough. I do think they should have added more USB ports and ideally a USB-C port as there is only 1 + the 12v one for your own adapter. At least plugging your phone into the USB port lets you use Android Auto instead of Toyota's navigation system.

The steering wheel feels very nice, again the suede like material on it is great to touch and the controls are intuitive pretty much got used to them from the get go.

The back seats are lacking in space as expected for a 3 door car, on this point I do really miss the extra two doors, no longer can I throw my work bag on the back seats, it’s easier to put in the boot or the passenger seat. If you’re above 1.7m you would have your head touching the ceiling at the back but the simple solution is not to have tall friends.

Haven’t tried any of the features such as heated seats or the heated steering wheel as it’s been hot in Sydney since I got it.

Safety and other convenience features: I love the HUD display projecting your current speed and lane position is great. I think this should be done as a safety feature for all cars, you don't need to look to the side and can always focus on the road. When using Toyota's navigation it also projects the direction, unfortunately it doesn't do it for AndroidAuto with Google Maps which sucks as that's the main navigation system I use (if you read this Toyota maybe you can do an update to include GMaps).

The lane departure warning is a bit annoying at times and occasionally it tries to auto-correct you when you’re changing lanes but this doesn’t happen often. The adaptive cruise control mode is good but I still don’t trust the way it auto steers in the lanes. In the tunnel it wants to keep me closer to the wall which I tend not to do, so I am constantly adjusting it which turns it off and then back on. For anything straightish and in the open though it's been good.

I have had the indicator of “Break Now” light up twice when I was coming up to one of those lane islands that occasionally appear on the roads, maybe because it was thinking that I wasn’t going to adjust and follow the bend.

Toyota also has the navigation guidance that tells you about Red Light cameras, Speed cameras, and School zones (school zone notification goes on regardless of time). I learnt that Sydney is basically one massive school zone and I had to turn this off as hearing that you’re entering one every 3 minutes gets quickly annoying. Unfortunately I couldn’t find a way to get the Speed/Red Light camera notifications but keep school zones off. I guess I just need to make sure to always look at the allowed speed on the HUD display.

The reverse camera does what is expected, you have your standard indication of how close you’re getting with horizontal and vertical lines. If only the centre display would be more crisp… why Toyota, why couldn’t you just install some outdated Apple/Samsung tablet instead?

There are no parking sensors in this model and even the dealer didn’t know or expect this. For a car that has high end features like heated seats/wheel, HUD, 8 speakers..etc not to have parking sensors seems strange. Maybe they were trying to save on weight or thought that everyone who gets this is a semi pro driver and would be offended by having parking sensors but then why do they have the reversing camera? So many questions and so few answers.

The drive: Forget about the looks and the interior this is basically the reason to get this car and again I am no petrol head (although maybe I am turning into one). Driving this car is so much fun. The acceleration, the shifting of gears, stickiness to the road, and the speed at which you can take turns. I haven’t done any “hard” driving, I am not even sure I know how to but the drive on normal roads is comparable to that of Tesla Model S which costs way more.

It feels like you’re driving a much bigger car due to all the power and the 4wd drive-train. I wish Sydney was full of 80km winding roads, unfortunately driving to work for me is mostly in that 40km range, which means I am basically never changing it to 3rd gear.

I’ve also tried the different drive modes you can select which are Sport where 30% of the power goes to the front and 70% to the back and Track 50% split (the Normal mode which is 60% front and 40% to the back). It’s hard to feel the difference when you’re driving on normal roads between Sports and Track and Normal when the normal mode by itself is so abnormally fast. However I’ll be updating this section when and if I can properly test it.

Fuel consumption: This is a bit of a pain point. Coming from a Yaris that I needed to fill up once every 2 weeks at a cost of around $50. The GR Yaris however needs to be done on a weekly basis at around $65 and you can only fill it up with Premium due to it being a turbo charged engine. Maybe once the fun drive factor goes away over time, and I hope it doesn’t, it will get annoying to have to fill it up frequently and at a larger cost.

One of the default features it has to save on fuel is Engine OFF when you have stopped and put the gear in neutral (needed to get used to it because I thought I was stalling in neutral at first). Mostly this works fine and not noticeable, the only times I have issues is when you’ve come to a full stop at a traffic light and as the engine turns OFF the light turns green, you press the clutch the engine immediately turns back ON while it’s still kind of turning OFF - this really doesn’t feel smooth.

Overall: Really fun car to drive and I am very happy that I decided to jump on that discounted offer. I think for that price it’s the best small car to buy on the market.

The good: - driving it - the gear box, acceleration, breaks, and turning… that turning - the interior - the looks - Head UP Display (HUD)

The bad: - Centre display - Lack of parking sensors - 3 Doors (shouldn’t really put it here but those 2 extra doors are so good for the day-to-day)