HOMOLOGATION SPECIAL. A PHRASE SO FULLY LOADED it can make your first few miles in the Toyota GR Yaris a little underwhelming. A Lancia 037 possessed neither a three-year warranty nor a nannying lane-keep system that reactivated every time you started the engine. But to sell the 25,000 cars necessary to meet modern World Rally Championship rules – as was Toyota’s target until Covid scuppered the rally version’s chances of being ready before the sport switched to hybrid machines – the broad-shouldered Yaris needed to conform at least a little.
There’s also the tidal wave of hype that brought the little Toyota to shore. Barely anyone blinked when the curious Yaris GRMN – a much underrated car – launched five years ago. Squeeze a punchy turbo engine and a four-wheel-drive chassis with a variable power split under some shrink-wrapped bodywork, however, and interest is more universally piqued.
It’s easy to imagine the folks at Audi Sport were a little miffed. Much of the GR Yaris recipe replicates that of the mighty little S1, a performance car almost a decade the Yaris’s senior. An only mildly diluted, higher-production-run version of the curious, 333-off A1 Quattro, it treads a similar line to the dinky Toyota but – as yet – doesn’t seem to have been paraded under the same ‘future classic!’ banner. Which is why
