A Day Out at the Porsche Experience Centre Silverstone
For the cost of the average track day, Porsche UK offer the use of one of their cars and 90 minutes of one-to-one expert track tuition at their Silverstone experience centre. As Alex Dunlop finds out, it’s a great way to get to know a 911, and improve your car control.
Chances are that if you’re inflicted with the great petrolhead disease you have probably been gifted a supercar experience day, you know where you get to drive some clapped-out exotic in 4th gear at 60mph around an airfield. They are disappointingly naff but you still have to grin and pretend it’s the best experience of your life. The Porsche Experience is not that, it’s petrolhead nirvana.
The enjoyment starts with buying the experience, you can pick pretty much any car in the current Porsche line-up as well as some more specialist experiences in some of the previous generations including cars like the 997 4.0 RS and 911R. I had agonised over what car to choose but I settled on a 911 Carrera T, a sweet spot in the 911 range that wouldn’t corrupt me like a Turbo S or a GT3 would. The standard 90-minute course was £325 with a meal included, plus the option to add an additional guest’s meal at checkout. I should note that this experience was purchased with my own money and Porsche did not pay for this.
Arriving on the day you are greeted by an interactive map of the tracks on offer, an airfield this ain’t! It’s a combination of two road-style handling circuits, “the straights” acceleration and braking course, two small low friction tracks on the infield, the “ice hill” and the “kick plate” which offer an extremely low grip surface to simulate snow and ice. There is also an offroad section for the SUVS but for obvious reasons, I wouldn’t be exploring that in a 911.
After sign on and some time spent drooling over the cars inside the centre it was time for a coffee which of course had “911” written in chocolate on the top. Next up was a laid back briefing where an instructor lets you know how the day will run, the various do’s and don’ts and other useful information. Your guests don’t have to sit through any of this, instead they get to sit in the facility and enjoy refreshments as well as views over the centre and Silverstone circuit itself.
My instructor collected me and showed me to my car for the day, a lovely Carrera T with the PDK box. The car was immaculately clean, full of fuel and was wearing a nice fresh set of tyres, Porsche clearly pay attention to the cars condition and it shows. After a brief chat and getting yourself seated in the car correctly you then head out onto the two handling circuits to get used to the car and learn where everything is. Initial impressions are that this facility really has it all and is laid out to maximise both you and the car. So far all I can tell you about the T is that the auto box shifts nicely and the 18 way seats are very comfortable.
The first exercise is a figure of 8, here my instructor asked me to build up speed and get comfortable with how the car stops and goes. They use this to assess your throttle, brake and steering control and to understand how confident you are. After a few runs my instructor was happy with my abilities and directed us onto the small handling circuit. In this exercise I couldn’t really get much of a feel for the T short of telling you that it stops and goes with ease and the auto box responds snappily when you plant the throttle.
I was asked to do a couple of laps at a slower pace then to carry on and drive at a speed I was happy with whilst he assessed my lines. This was my first chance to unleash the T and see what it was all about, my first impression was just how capable and communicative it was, within a couple of laps I was driving at eight tenths and feeling good thanks to the rear end traction inspiring confidence and the chassis goading me to drive harder. My instructor began to ask a few questions about driving fast and assessing how I go about learning a circuit, this was all very encouraging and he began to advise on two corners where if I changed my line I could lap even faster. After 10 more minutes of fast laps with a gradually increased pace the instructor moved us on to the straights for some acceleration and braking tests.
This exercise is used by the instructor to see how good you are at threshold braking and manging traction but also to demonstrate the cars behaviour in the various modes. This section of the day felt seriously abusive, we ran through 10 or so launch control starts followed by a big stop each time. By the final launch we had all systems off and were leaving some lovely elevens and a cloud of smoke as the T fought for traction. Despite being the entry level engine the 3.0 was strong with great low down grunt and power that only trailed off at the very top of the rev range, thanks to the T’s reduced sound deadening it also sounded glorious with that characteristic flat 6 howl.
Another thing to highlight was brake pedal feel, you could always get the exact amount of deceleration you needed and the pedal never went soft, great initial bite and progressive feel is just what you need for this exercise. My instructor was confident in my control of the car so threw a couple of curve balls in, firstly I should launch the car and accelerate until he shouts “brake” upon which I take my hands off the wheel and stop the car, yeah that was a spicy one that I wouldn’t like to repeat. The second was to launch, accelerate then when he shouts “brake” I should change lanes whilst braking. We survived both of these and had a little chuckle about how capable the car’s systems are, try that in a 930 911 and you’d be in the nearest hedge.
The next exercise took us to the larger handling circuit where again I was asked to build up speed and my instructor would check my lines and offer advice. This larger circuit feels like the best road you’ve ever been on, a mix of high speed well sighted corners, blind crests and big cambers, I could have driven it all day. Particularly as on this circuit the T really shone, trail braking would tuck the nose in nicely and you could feel the steering weight change from corner entry to corner exit as the rear engine weight transfer occurred.
One specific uphill right hander Is where you could feel the 911-ness with the nose going slightly light as it just pushed to understeer, it’s a magical feeling that no other car possesses. Again my instructor showed me a couple of lines that I could take to really maximise my corner entry speeds but overall he was happy. I must admit that now I really was pushing close to my full ability and we both shot a wry smile as we slipped past and lapped both a Carrera 4S and a 991 GT3 RS, by this point the tyres were getting a little squishy so we moved onto the low friction ice hill.
My instructor was impressed with my control on the dry road surfaces but now he wanted to assess what I could do when the grip was all gone. The ice hill is a 7 degree slope of low friction surface covered in water that offers the same experience as a snowy and icy road or roughly translated, sod all grip. We started with all systems on and the instructor asked me to build up speed and to pin the throttle which demonstrated that the car will always you keep pointing the right way, we continued the exercise with the systems being gradually slackened until everything was off and matting the throttle led to the full 911 pendulum effect and me facing the wrong way. But after a few more attempts I had full control and was preceding up the hill bouncing off the limiter in 2nd, being this brutal feels great when its not your own car. I had control on a straight bit of road but what about some low friction corners? It was time to move on.
The second low friction course is a section of tight corners and a skid pad that’s used to practice controlled sliding, all systems were set back on and the instructor asked me to demonstrate understeer and oversteer before we focused on controlling slides. Now not to toot my own horn but I like to think I’m pretty capable of sliding a car, but a 911 is a whole different animal, beyond a certain point it’s impossible to recover and I was expertly able to demonstrate this on the skid pad. The instructor asked to hold a big doughnut with opposite lock on and control the throttle to keep the slide going. I could kick the car slideways no problem but countering that pendulum effect as such low speeds was impossible, I spent more time going backwards than any other direction with the T resembling a tipsy ballerina as it span wonkily around the concrete.
After 10 minutes or so it started to click and I had now got my head around how you counter that rear engine bias, the solution is to just not lift and always keep a little trailing throttle. Opposite to a front engine rear drive car where you kick sideways, counter steer then balance the throttle, this was more kick, then balance and countersteer in two steps. Once that was nailed I had great fun going round and round in circles whilst holding the car on the lock stops. We moved on to focus on sliding around corners and transitioning from one direction to another which was immense fun but not as fun as the final activity.
The kickplate is described as “a computer-controlled hydraulic plate set flush to the road surface, it is designed to induce loss of rear wheel traction, putting the car into a skid or spin.” In truth, it is an anxiety-inducing torture device. You drive up to it and it will throw the rear of the car randomly to the left or right and it’s your job to catch the slide. Starting out slowly with the systems on it’s a doddle, a small amount of corrective lock with the throttle on and the car shrugs it off. Once you get to about 24mph with all the systems off it’s a little more challenging but unpredictably hilarious fun. After a few runs the instructor asked me to try something different, drive around the kickplate, pull onto the low grip surface and pin the throttle. He clearly wanted to cement my learnings from the many failed doughnuts and I’m pleased to report the muscle memory was there, a lovely 15mph slide whilst the T continued to beat the limiter was executed.
That was officially all the activities done and the rain had now arrived in typical British spring fashion, but as I had some time left the instructor said that we should venture back out onto the larger handling circuit and push the car in the rain. That sort of attitude sums up the whole experience, the instructors want to push you whilst demonstrating what the cars can do. With this weather came the chance to explore the T’s behaviour in a different scenario, just as it was in the dry the T was unburst-able, the reduced grip meant that it moved around a little more but I still had the confidence to continue to push on. The rear engine traction really became noticeable as did the overall balance, the T is incredibly well calibrated and feels like it has just the right amount of everything, even when its pouring with rain and temperatures are in single figures.
Once the experience was done it was back into the facility for a coffee and a debrief before having an afternoon tea that was booked as part of my 13:30-15:00 experience time. The refreshments on offer and the facilities are brilliant and much better than the watery coffee and a Portaloo that most of those other experiences offer. The whole day was typical Porsche, it was brilliantly well done and thought out from start to finish. I’m firmly of the opinion that this is something that everyone should do, even if you have no interest in Porsches or cars. The driving skills they teach are invaluable and getting to learn them whilst driving a sportscar is the cherry on top, I’m certainly going back, maybe it’s time to be corrupted by a Turbo S or should I go all out and book a 911 R…
Toyota GR Yaris Deep Dive Review
Will the real Toyota GR Yaris please stand up? In this long-term review and high-performance assessment, Kristian Spreckley delves into the dynamic attributes and assesses the long term ownership experience of the homologation hatch.
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YPE – in the age of the ‘Attention Economy’ we’re surrounded by it, bombarded by every social media platform or marketing department we engage with. If there’s one word that sums up the GR Yaris, hype is it. I don’t think any car has ever been the subject of as much fanfare as this little rally special, yet it’s possible the hype train might’ve been more of a burden than a good thing.
Born in a time when the car community was whipping itself into a frenzy over the impending doom of the internal combustion engine, nevermind one that was starved of affordable, driver-focused cars (let alone bonafide homologation specials!), the expectation and goodwill towards the Yaris was off the charts. Throw in the interruption of COVID lockdown keeping us all off the roads and Toyota stringing us along with a drawn-out teaser campaign, the excitement reached fever pitch. Then, finally, the reviews came in and the car delivered. Big time.
It was a perfect storm moment for the GR Yaris. This little car has probably had more positive reviews than any other in recent times, whether it be from both longstanding, respected members of the motoring press to YouTube influencers. Like the talking up of the England football team’s chances whenever an international tournament comes around, could such exposure have been more of a curse than a blessing? In true build-them-up, knock-them-down fashion, it’s now becoming trendy to call the car overrated in certain circles. Is it a case of, as Public Enemy said, “don’t believe the hype”?
So, what we have here is a review of the car’s performance over the roads of Lancashire, sprinkled with feedback from a long-term ownership perspective. The aim is to cut through all that hype of three years ago and give an honest, objective appraisal over two-and-a-half years living with the car, not a few hours, or even a week that form your average road test verdict. A lot of dust has settled since the GR Yaris was first launched and most reviews have tailed away, so now seems like the perfect time to revisit the car with the revised 2024 model on the horizon.
I’m going to assume that reading this magazine, you’re already well versed in the arts of the homologation special, thus the mouthwatering specification of the GR Yaris; the bespoke, strengthened body shell, the most powerful turbocharged three-cylinder engine in production, the lightweight construction (1,280 kg kerb weight) and an all-wheel-drive system with a differential at each axle (assuming you’ve specified the Circuit Pack). Famously, so much was changed on this car, the only elements carried over from the Yaris Harold and Doris drive to Morrisons are the light units, the mirrors and the shark fin antenna – literally everything else is changed.
AUTHOR
Road Tester
Photography by;
Ben Midlane
Published on:
1st February 2024
OUR PRINT MAGAZINE
CATEGORIES
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This morning’s rendezvous point with Craig and photographer Ben Midlane is Jubilee Tower near Lancaster before we head into the Trough of Bowland. I set off late having had messages from the dynamic duo informing me they’re en route – and they’re starting point is already nearer than me. Great! Need to make time then. As I peel off the M6 and head towards Jubilee Tower, the road rears up and, as you’d expect at 5:30 am, it’s blissfully quiet.
There’s plenty of visibility but the roads are damp, so I tread carefully to start with. Going uphill helps, you bleed off speed relatively easily and the natural gravitational forces mean you can push the car and lose momentum fairly quickly. There are short straight stretches punctuated by sharp, almost hairpin-like corners with dry stone walls on each side, GR Yaris territory doesn’t get much better! The torque and powerful brakes work in real harmony here, allowing the Yaris to haul you out of corners with immense traction and the brakes have plenty of power to lose speed rapidly.
In these conditions, the Yaris excels. As I head up towards the top of the moor, the road opens up and I can see Jubilee Tower, the road straightening as I approach the summit. There’s good visibility only broken by a series of rhythmic undulations which the Yaris deals with nonchalantly, so I’m able to press on. In the distance, I can see two motorcyclists who have also caught the early worm and their stare is fixated on me. The Yaris isn’t a noisy car, it doesn’t make a racket but it has captured their attention and I’m fully aware of the speed I’m carrying. Conscious not to look like a hooligan, I back off as I approach the tower.
Despite playing catch-up, I’ve blatantly been having fun because I’m on site before Craig and Ben, so park up and take in the waking plain of Lancashire and the Lancaster coastline. It’s a wonderful view and I take the opportunity to have a stroll and take in the Yaris silhouette against this stunning backdrop.
The first-generation GR Yaris only came in four colours: Pure White, Precious Black, Scarlet Flare (pictured) and Platinum White Pearl. The latter two were an £880 optional extra.
The initial list price of the car in the UK was £29,995, with many buyers opting for the £3,500 Circuit Pack. Residual values remain strong today.
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It’s a purposeful-looking thing, not beautiful but deeply effective. There’s something about this time in the morning, the quietness, the lighting, the hyper-sensitivity to the sounds and sights around you and twinned with this view I feel privileged to be witness to the unfolding day. I’m drawn away by the distant shrill of what I initially think is a bike engine, only to realise that it has to be the noise of an F4R reaching towards that 7,400 rpm limiter! Sure enough, moments later a red Clio appears over the horizon, lights ablaze and sounding glorious!
After grabbing some shots from the tower and the surrounding area, we head into the heart of the Trough of Bowland which is a staggering place to drive this type of car. The roads are tight, twisty and narrow which means there’s not lots of opportunity to drive a car flat out but it’s the tapestry of winding roads and spectacular scenery that makes it all-encompassing when it comes to engaged driving. Where the road opens up and visibility is good, I’m able to exercise the Yaris and it truly is an exceptional device when presented with these kinds of roads and in these conditions. You do need to drive it quite hard to revel in its chassis and although those opportunities aren’t constantly available, when they are you’re occasionally presented with ‘wow’ moments.
It’s reminding me of the first time I experienced one, which became a defining moment in my relationship with the car. Truth be told when I got my car, I spent the first 3 months wondering what all the ‘hype’ was about, with only the odd “blimey that was special” moment to back up the hysteria. I heard of people selling quickly because it “wasn’t for them”, “too fast” or it didn’t suit their daily lifestyle and wondered whether I was in the same boat. Craig bought and sold his example in a similar timeframe. I had been going through a similar ‘lull’ with the car, driving mundane roads, taking the children to school and using the car like a typical humdrum daily commuter. I considered selling myself.
Then, out of the blue, on a local motorway slip road that has a long left-hander followed by a sharp right-hander, it happened, one of those genuine ‘wow’ moments. This isn’t your average long fast motorway slip road but one with two fantastically technical bends and rippled, undulating tarmac. It’s only about 600-800m in total but the way the Yaris tackled the challenge has etched itself onto my mind.
From that moment I accepted that as special as the car is and feels, you’ve got to search for the right playground to really bring the car to life, and to explore those opportunities at the right time of day. Only then can you revel in the car’s dynamic abilities and truly understand the purpose it was built for – to dismantle difficult terrain and do so whilst at the same time providing tremendous driver satisfaction and feedback, making that experience easy to access. Or in the case of a pure competition car, help the driver get through the stage as fast as feasibly possible!
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Bowland is one of those playgrounds, and as we head further into the countryside the roads just keep giving, mile after mile. The car does have quite a dynamic handling repertoire and to get the most out of it you have to understand its general behaviour. Although hugely grippy, the chassis does tend to lean towards understeer at the limit and this is particularly noticeable on track if you try to simply bludgeon corners. Most of the time on the public road you don’t overcome the large reserves of grip the car has to offer but occasionally you can find plough on understeer, sometimes when you’re simply not expecting it. There’s a certain way to drive a Yaris to get the most out of it and it’s important to understand this.
Drive it like other performance hatches and it won’t necessarily make sense. If you get on the power too early in a corner the car will push straight on quite dramatically, a mix of understeer through the front-driven wheels with the addition of the pushing force from the rear which tends to exacerbate the understeer and push it further into understeer, quickly! The best way to drive the car is with a good dose of trail braking which allows the car to have a much more neutral to rear bias to its handling.
When driven like this, the car comes alive, dancing and reacting to the throttle whilst remaining resolutely grippy in its general attitude. In terms of grip, I’m not sure there are many other chassis out there that can generate so much adhesion on average UK roads in all conditions. In the wet, if you’ve never driven any other 4WD performance car, the grip is simply astounding. You can genuinely use pretty much the same throttle opening as in the dry on most wet corners and the Yaris just fires you out onto the next straight.
If you tried to follow a Yaris in the rain in a conventional RWD performance car, you would without doubt end up in a hedge very quickly or at the very least lose sight of the Yaris within a few hundred metres. The difference really is that big. It’s the liberties you can take with the car that you can’t with others that allow you to cover ground so effortlessly and securely. On a track, a RWD car might be able to keep pace but on a bumpy unsighted b-road, it doesn’t stand a chance.
Is there too much grip? It’s a view I’ve heard a lot and a reason that many people have moved on from the Yaris or tend to favour it as a winter car, tucking it away during the summer months for something a bit more playful in the dry. Where roads allow it, and on track, you can get the car into very neutral power oversteer moments. These aren’t like in say a BMW M car where there’s long progressive slides but much more fleeting, pull-you-straight moments before the car latches onto its chosen line and fires you at the next horizon.
“On a track, a RWD car might be able to keep pace but on a bumpy unsighted b-road, it doesn’t stand a chance…you would without doubt end up in a hedge very quickly…The difference really is that big…”
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There are elements of the cars’ make-up and design that are intrinsically important to how it drives and handles. You’ve doubtless read about the yards and yards of extra adhesive and the umpteen extra spot welds. I won’t bore you with the details but what I can say is this has an absolute, tangible impact on how the car feels. I’ve not driven many – or any – cars that feel so structurally strong over bumps and broken tarmac as this. Body stiffness is unlike any car I’ve driven before, it feels like it is honed from granite. Hit bumps and the body remains resolute and it has a significant impact on how the suspension is able to interact with the road as the whole platform is so stiff, only the suspension is allowed to move and breathe with the road. There are not many surfaces that upset the Yaris and the quicker you go, the better it gets. Honestly, there are very few cars at any price that can get down a British country road like this thing can.
Be careful though, it is so quick and so composed that you can find yourself travelling at genuinely crazy speeds on the public road. I don’t believe there’s any standard road car that can get down a typical twisty B road any quicker than the Yaris. Of course, in today’s performance car world, you can say this of almost anything since cars are so well developed that you have to push well beyond sane speeds and behaviours to pull a meaningful gap over any other performance car on the public road. Although it’s quite stiff, mid-corner bumps don’t phase it. You put it on a line and it sticks to it, resolutely. The sense of traction, even at low speeds is genuinely staggering, you know that even at considerably higher speeds it wouldn’t feel much different, it would grip and go, naturally.
Of the three distribution modes available – Normal (60:40), Sport (30:70) and Track (50:50) – Track tends to be the mode of choice for maximum attack driving whether on the road or the track. Normal mode works very well for everyday driving and is the least easy to ‘upset’ if driving hard, in other words, the most forgiving and the mode I tend to prefer unless deliberately driving the car for pure enjoyment. Sport can provide a more RWD feel but the car can suffer from understeer in this mode unless you really try to provoke the car, not really delivering the feel you’d expect given 70% of the power is fed to the rear. I suspect this is because, despite the modes, the ECU still tracks the car’s behaviour and can juggle torque as required to keep everything on the black stuff.
Track however tends to provide the most thrills and allows the car to grip prodigiously whilst also introducing much more bias towards slight oversteer which transitions into neutral power oversteer when judged perfectly. Balance braking with acceleration in this mode and the car becomes a monster at covering ground, literally firing you out of each turn with a slight slide before you’re hurled down the next straight and ready to do the same at the next corner.
The Circuit Pack includes Torsen limited-slip differentials on both front and rear axles, firmer damping and thicker anti-roll bars, 18-inch forged alloy wheels with Michelin Pilot Sport 4S tyres. Also included were larger brakes with red callipers.
In contrast, the Convenience Pack focuses on additional features such as satellite navigation, a head-up display, and parking sensors. They were equipped with Dunlop SP Sport MAXX 050 tyres. Both specifications offered Apple CarPlay as standard.
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The brakes can feel a bit wooden but certainly don’t lack power and fade is non-existent on the road and unless you do long stints on the track, you won’t see any fade there either. The pedal is also extremely firm, much like a competition car but the setup allows for wonderful brake modulation when you’re in full attack mode and using the brakes to link a series of bends. I’m not sure many production cars have better factory brakes at any price point.
Pedal positioning is generally good although I’d say that the gap between the brake and accelerator is slightly wider than ideal, and the height difference between the brake and accelerator is also bigger than you’d like. This means you need to properly ‘heel and toe’ rather than using just the width of the ball of your foot like you can in very well-set-up cars. Assuming you have turned off the auto rev match function that is.
The gear change is slightly agricultural but in a good way, it almost feels like you’ve got to grab it by the scruff of the neck to get it to work but when you do, it works very effectively. There’s a nice weight to the shift mechanism, almost like it’s counterweighted as you move it through the gate. The shift lever is 50mm higher than in a standard Yaris so that it falls nicely to hand and the shift is wonderfully positive and requires just the right level of engagement from the driver. For a small car, it feels like an incredibly strong gearbox, much like the rest of the car then, a big car feel and engineering in a compact package.
The steering wheel is a fantastic piece of design from a pure touch point perspective, a perfect diameter, avoiding the lean towards thick-rimmed steering wheels that adorn most performance cars of the last ten years. I’m convinced this allows a much more delicate steer and promotes steering with the fingers and a light touch rather than clenched fists on a thick-rimmed wheel. Turn-in is not quite as sharp as I’d like and if there was one thing on this car I think could be improved, it’s this.
Subtle tweaks to the geometry, say adding a degree or so of negative camber, would, I suspect, improve this and make the car feel more alive and give it some bite when making that initial movement of the steering wheel. It’s hardly slow to respond and never feels anything less than sporty but it does lack any degree of real feel. I can see why they have set it up as they have, the car would doubtless feel more edgy if it was tweaked and likely make it less progressive, which actually may appeal to a smaller audience than how it is currently set up. It’s very confidence-inspiring as it is with an almost invincible feel – at least on the public road.
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We head further East through the Forest of Bowland towards Gisburn Forest. It’s all Yaris country around here but these roads perhaps more so than the roads we’ve been on so far today. Narrow in width, bumpy, broken and littered with shale, they present a challenge to any car trying to make progress and this is where the Yaris really shines. Sure, a Range Rover or Land Rover can tackle these roads with aplomb but they can’t cover them with such agility, athleticism and speed and most other performance cars would feel like they were being abused if you tried to attack these roads. Apt then that Gisburn has its own rally stage and therefore a fitting place to bring the car.
The road gets narrower and narrower as we head through the forest before opening up onto the moor between Slaidburn and High Bentham. This is a fantastic piece of road, single track, winding back and forth and up and down but there are no trees or hedges, so visibility is wonderful, just the odd stray sheep to watch out for! This road is genuinely thrilling to drive in the Yaris, constantly on and off the power and working the brakes hard as this ribbon of asphalt winds back and forth with each bend separated by very short straights with some of the corners almost doubling back on themselves.
Thankfully it’s quiet today and there’s never a need to use the passing places that are scattered along the road to allow oncoming traffic to pass. You can use all the width of the road here as the sightlines are so good, meaning you can get tremendous flow and indulge yourself in a truly immersive experience.
The engine is also a high point in this car. Whilst a 1.6-litre three-cylinder engine doesn’t fire up the senses like a high revving naturally aspirated V8, the noise is gruff and offbeat, although as is the norm now the sound is largely synthesised through the speakers. Many people have deleted the sound enhancement but I’m a fan and it lets you know what’s going on whilst keeping things civilised outside of the car. The real strength of this engine is its tractability, response, torque and ability to rev right out, unlike most turbocharged engines which tail off short of the rev limiter – not so in this, the revs build beautifully.
In real-world driving it’s the torque that provides clear advantages in every situation – there’s a big enough swell of torque that you can accelerate perfectly acceptably in a high gear without the need to change down in normal driving and then in spirited driving, the torque arrives so early that corner exit is never anything less than slingshot like unless you’ve heroically misjudged your gear selection. The ease with which you can cover ground at a moderate pace is night and day different to something naturally aspirated like an E46 M3 where torque is virtually non-existent and gear selection is everything. It’s an essential part of the package this power unit, and genuinely impressive in how it helps meld together such a cohesive drivetrain and deliver the Yaris’s fairly unique driving experience.
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We finish the day on a wider, quicker road, the B6478 towards Clitheroe. It’s well-sighted and has a mixture of fast sweeping curves and tight hairpins and with a fair amount of elevation, you can be pushing on uphill or metering the speed accordingly as you descend. On one particular downhill section, there’s a nicely positioned ‘hump’ in the road that allows the car to really unweight itself, you could likely get airborne if you were to have a marshalled road with no fear of oncoming traffic but we leave that to the imagination today and instead enjoy the way the suspension travel deals with the sudden change in height, but still allows the car to be wonderfully pliant and controllable. It is what makes this car so different to most other cars out there today, despite the cringe-inducing cliche it genuinely is set up like a ‘rally car for the road’, with good wheel travel with suspension that’s stiff yet compliant enough to deal with roads you’d otherwise expect on a rally stage.
It’s been a great day, spent on roads the GR Yaris was designed to excel upon. But on the way home, my mind falls into further contemplation surrounding owning the car for over two and a half years. I’ve certainly come on a journey with this car, and my opinion and realisation of its talents evolving over time. Initially, I bought into the hype, only to be left thinking where is the magic? And I think that’s where the initial hype train did the car an injustice. Everyone expected some super mega out-of-this-world experience but in everyday real-world driving that rarely occurs in any car, let alone one costing £33,500. Take it for what it is, a truly bespoke piece of engineering that fulfils a brief – expose it to the right conditions and you have a remarkable package that is engaging and thrilling to drive. Long may it remain in production.
Toyota was so scared it wouldn’t make the 25,000-unit homologation target, that it even commissioned a special JDM-only version of the car that utilised the body shell but used ordinary Yaris running gear underneath. But there are now more than 32,000 worldwide, and over 5,000 have found their way to the UK. Toyota originally aimed to sell just 750 UK cars. Part of the reason was probably the exceptional 0% finance deal Toyota offered on these cars for the first couple of years. They’re sold out now but those numbers mean it’s relatively easy to get hold of a second-hand, low-mileage example if you want.
Will the numbers lower future values? Almost certainly I’d say, a combination of the hype, ‘flippers’ and the finance deal means there are likely more cars than the specialist enthusiast buyers who want these things. Not necessarily great news if you own one and want good residuals to remain (they’re still pretty good as we write this) but great news if you want a proper homologation special at a relatively affordable price. There’s little available for the money that has a 5-year/ 100k mile warranty and this kind of pedigree.
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Is it a hot hatch? Well, it’s the right size but I think that’s about the only concession. Most hot hatches are front-wheel drive and personally, I think that’s how we should box them. This means the Yaris isn’t a hot hatch at all. I think we think of it as a ‘Rally Special’, a modern Impreza/ Evo type car and the spiritual successor to those rally legends. Despite appearances, the GR Yaris should be classified as an out-and-out performance car.
Today, how would I sum up the Yaris? Once again using one word; FUN. There are relatively few cars that can produce as much pure driving enjoyment as this yet feel so special. And it does feel genuinely special, from the incredibly stiff platform to the way the diffs engage with a clunk when you select first gear, to the bespoke and properly developed three-cylinder engine, to the carbon roof and associated aerodynamics, to its production in the Motomichi plant where the LFA was manufactured. In producing a homologation special Toyota took the bull by the horns and left no stone unturned in terms of its aim and execution – the result is a relatively affordable hatch, with a full rally pedigree, that can be a genuine giant killer given the right circumstances.
Has it been a success? Well as I write this news has filtered through that production will continue with a ‘MKII’ car that has some subtle modifications, most of which have come from feedback from users and motorsport. Largely elements of the package have been strengthened to make the car more reliable and we’ve no doubt these changes will produce a car that improves on the current car. It has also been promoted to a permanent resident in the Toyota lineup – proof that the car has been a commercial success as well as fulfilling its brief as a ‘halo’ car.
So, as we come full circle, does it deserve the hype? Absolutely. It’s unique in its execution, the sector it sits in and we should applaud Toyota for producing such a gem of a car, the likes of which we might never see again. Don’t listen to Public Enemy, believe the hype!
The GR Yaris is 55 mm longer, 60 mm wider, and 40 mm lower than the regular Yaris. While the wheelbase is only 2 mm shorter, the rear track is 35 mm wider, contributing to its aggressive stance and improved handling stability.
Toyota GR Yaris Stats, Performance and Rush Rating
Engine
Type: G16E-GTS
Configuration: Inline-3, 12-valve DOHC
Displacement: 1,618 cc (1.6 litres)
Bore x Stroke: 87.5 mm x 89.7 mm
Compression Ratio: 10.5:1
Fuel System: Direct and port fuel injection
Turbocharger: Single-scroll turbo with an air-to-water intercooler
Max Power: 261 PS (257 bhp) at 6,500 rpm
Max Torque: 360 Nm (266 lb-ft) at 3,000 – 4,600 rpm
Transmission
Type: 6-speed manual transmission with iMT (Intelligent Manual Transmission) rev matching
Gear Ratios:
1st: 3.538
2nd: 2.238
3rd: 1.535
4th: 1.162
5th: 0.916
6th: 0.725
Reverse: 3.831
Final Drive Ratio: 4.058
Brakes
Front Brakes: 356 mm ventilated discs with 4-piston aluminium callipers
Rear Brakes: 297 mm ventilated discs with 2-piston aluminium callipers
Tyres
Fitted Tyres: Michelin Pilot Sport 4S
Front and Rear Tyres: 225/40 R18
Chassis
Transverse front-engine, permanent all-wheel-drive
Front Suspension: MacPherson strut with coil springs
Rear Suspension: Double wishbone with coil springs
Wheelbase: 2,558 mm
Front Track: 1,530 mm
Rear Track: 1,560 mm
4WD Setup and Differentials
Type: GR-FOUR all-wheel-drive system
Torque Distribution Modes:
Normal: 60% front / 40% rear
Sport: 30% front / 70% rear
Track: 50% front / 50% rear
Torsen limited-slip differentials on both front and rear axles (Circuit Pack)
Weight
DIN Kerb Weight: 1,280 kg
Power-to-weight: 200.78 bhp/ton
Torque-to-weight: 207.81 lb ft/ton
Performance
0-30 mph: 1.5 seconds
0-60 mph: 4.64 seconds
0-100 mph: 11.62 seconds
0-124 mph (0-200 km/h): 24.9 seconds (est.)
Standing Quarter Mile Time: 13.25 seconds
Terminal Speed: 105.9 mph
Top Speed: 143 mph (electronically limited)
In-Gear Acceleration Times
30-50 mph (4th gear): 3.3 seconds (est.)
50-70 mph (5th gear): 5.1 seconds (est.)
