A supercharged hot hatch, fettled by the ‘Masters of the Nurburgring.’
You may recognise the hatchback in these photos as the new Toyota Yaris, which we covered when its facelift debuted last month. Where the vanilla Yaris was a smart looking thing, the model you see here with its go-faster stickers and look-at-me bodykit, is the Yaris GRMN.
You will find a 1.8-litre four-cylinder petrol engine behind the snout, that has been supercharged (you read that correctly) to produce 153kW of power. The Yaris GRMN puts its power down through the front wheels through a six-speed manual transmission, that Toyota says will be the only transmission option for this driver-focused model.
The Japanese manufacturer claims best-in-class figures for the century sprint, as well as thrust from 80km/h to 120km/h in fourth gear, though it didn’t publicise any figures. Should the Yaris GRMN go as quickly as Toyota claims it does, it should make minced meat of the 6.7-second century sprint time posted by its arch rival, the Ford Fiesta ST. It’s not all speed either, with plenty of chassis refinements undoubtedly honed through rigorous testing around the ’N’ in ‘GRMN.’
For the uninitiated, ‘GRMN’ actually stands for ‘Gazoo Racing, Masters of the Nurburgring.’ The (rather self-serving) name comes from the GAZOO Racing team under Toyota, which traces its roots back to 2007 when it first entered the Nurburgring 24-Hours endurance race with a couple of used Toyota Altezza sports saloons. GAZOO has since enjoyed varied success in various motorsports, and now the moniker represents Toyota’s unified competition efforts.
Going back to the Yaris GRMN, it sits a little closer to the ground on shorter, stiffer springs, supported by Sachs-developed dampers and a larger front stabiliser bar to go with it. There’s also chassis strut bracing to stiffen the structure of the car, including an additional bar between the front suspension towers. Traction and handling is assisted by a Torsen limited-slip differential and enormous ventilated brake discs, replete with four-pot front callipers.
The Yaris GRMN will be available exclusively as a three-door, eschewing the new norm of offering these compact hot-hatchbacks as 5-door propositions. The front and rear bumpers see a unique GAZOO treatment (which imbue it with an angry-puppy-like effect), and more visual treats come in the form of a rear-wing spoiler, rear diffuser, a central exhaust pipe and BBS multi-spoke alloys that come in at 17-inches in size. The white-red-black theme you see here ape the Yaris rally car that competed in the recent World Rally Championship.
The cabin doesn’t look nearly as radical as the exterior, with only the front sports seats offering any marked differentiation from the standard Yaris. The seats themselves were developed by Toyota Boshoku to provide great lateral support, as one would need when bombing around the Green Hell. There’s a leather-wrapped steering wheel stolen from the Toyota 86, a set of aluminium pedals, and some unique performance-emphasised instruments.
The Yaris GRMN will enjoy a very limited production run, with only 300 planned so far. 100 Yaris GRMNs will go to Japan, Germany, and France…. and that’s it. The Yaris GRMN will likely not be making Australian landfall, though we’re sure that the Australian office will be gauging public opinion to see if there’s a business case for it.
For more information on Toyota, check out our Showroom.
