Toyota’s GR Corolla is coming to Canada soon; let’s hope it’s as phantasmagorical as Toyota’s GR Yaris

Toyota’s GR Yaris is the very best sporty little car we can’t get in Canada. Better than Volkswagen’s T-Roc R. Vauxhaull’s Astra VXR. Ditto BMW’s 128ti. Hell, it’s damned near as good as Ford’s sorely missed Fiesta ST, my fave hot hatch of all time.

The GR Yaris has many of the same attributes that made the Fiesta ST the best track car of its generation. It’s light without being flighty, responsive without being twitchy, and supremely powerful — especially for a 1.6 litre three-cylinder — without being high-strung. It’s also extremely comely, surprisingly comfortable, and, since it’s Toyota, probably as reliable as an anvil. Throw in decent fuel economy along with a surprisingly luxurious interior and you have my candidate for car of the year. Indeed, the Toyota GR Yaris is every bit as phantasmagorical as all the reviews you’ve been reading.

Except that it’s not really a Yaris. Oh, it most assuredly wears the “Yaris” nameplate. Ditto the familiar Toyota badging. But it ain’t a Yaris. Not hardly at all.

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To start with, only the front half of the chassis is based on the standard Yaris. The back half, meanwhile, is some amalgam of Corolla and CH-R. Your first clue to its Frankenstein heritage should be that, while it’s shaped (kinda) like the base four-door hatch, there are no rear doors. The GR, you see, is a World Rally Car homologation special and, well, doors reduce chassis rigidity, something Tommi Mäkinen, Toyota’s WRC boss — and former four-time WRC champion — wouldn’t approve of. So, although there are some seats back there, good luck getting to ‘em.

Then there’s the roofline, lowered so much that the absence of those rear doors doesn’t matter ‘cause, again, nobody is going to be sitting back there anyways. Oh, and by the way, said roof is made of carbon fibre — reducing overall weight by 3.5 kilograms — something that certainly wasn’t part of the package when you ordered a $16,790 Yaris when they were last offered here in the Great White Frozen North. There are no less the 4,175 weld points holding this Frankenstein chassis together, augmented by some 35.4 metres of structural adhesives — that’s about 15 times the GR’s length — which means this chassis, right out of the box, is ready for the Rallye de Monte Carlo.

And that’s just the frame. The turbocharged 1.6-litre engine is, with 257 horsepower, the most powerful three-cylinder in production (though rumour has it that our Corolla version of the GR’s 1,518-cc I3 will see that bettered by some 43 hp). The standard all-wheel-drive system is mondo sophisticated, able to vary from a 40-60 front bias in Normal mode; to 70-30 for Sport mode, with Track’s 50-50 split in between.

Torsen differentials are available front and rear. Ditto BBS 18-inch mags gummy Michelin Pilot 4S 225/40-18 performance radials and four-piston front brake calipers (painted bright Italian red, by the way). It weighs but 1,280 kilograms, scoots to 100 kilometres an hour in just 5.2 seconds and, as my photos attest — actually Nadine Filion’s photos since I, safety first, had both hands on the wheel — it hits 200 km/h so easily that it’s hard to believe its top speed is ”only” 228 km/h. Other than the interior bits, there’s very little about the GR that is even remotely Yaris.

The motor is especially unique. Triples are uncommon in the automotive world, high-performance triples even rarer. And while 257 hp doesn’t sound like much in these days of 800-plus-horse supercars — and even stupider electrics — it only has to move about 2,800 pounds. Besides, most of the 266 pound-feet of maximum torque that Toyota boasts is available right off idle. Punch it hard at 3,000 rpm and the little bugger pretends it’s a V8 and torques out of the hole. Then it hits 4,000 and the high-tech, ball-bearing’ed turbo kicks in with a second wind that keeps on pulling to almost seven grand. Row the six-speed manual — with automatic throttle-blipping — hard and you can keep up with pretty much any hatch out there.

And it’s got a sound all of its own. Triples sound kinda lazy, the loss of one spark plug making the engine sound like it’s revving slower than it actually is. I’d be hustling along, absolutely sure I was keeping the revs down, only to finally find a straightaway long enough to look down and the engine would be thrumming along at 5,000 rpm, pretty much eviscerating every speed limit were I back in rigorously patrolled Ontario. It’s not exactly a lethargic beat, just that the decreased number of internal combustions per rpm really requires that you recalibrate your aural shift points.

Get it right and, according to What Car?, it’ll actually beat Toyota’s official 5.2-second acceleration time by almost half a second. For the record, the editors of that British enthusiast mag also say that makes it quicker than a Civic Type R, mainly because the Honda weighs at least 100 kilograms more and, of course, lacks the GR’s sophisticated all-wheel-drive system.

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Playing silly buggers — in other words, driving like the typical Italian — in the mountains, the GR may not be quite as playful as the Ford’s rally-ified Fiesta, but it’s as close as any hot hatch has come since I last drove the ST. It’s certainly doesn’t feel nearly as antiseptic as the latest Honda Type R, and it’s way more engaging that the snooze-fest that Subaru’s WRX STi has become.

Oh, it rolls a bit and can get a little squirrel-y when you start trail-braking into corners, but as soon as you hammer the gas and those twin Torsens start doing their thing, all becomes right in the world. The rear end hunkers down, the front tires bite, and the little bugger just rockets ahead. Flick it in to Sport — with that 70-30 rearward torque bias — and you can even emulate four-time WRC champion Mäkinen back when he was earning his nickname the “Flying Finn.” It’s hard to think of anything in the hot-hatch segment that can match its pace, and there’s nothing in the segment that’s nearly as much fun.

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All of which makes me want a GR very badly. Badly enough that I’d be mighty tempted to put my own hard-earned loonies down on one. It’s fast, it’s furious, and it even has four-wheel-drive to get me through the winter. And, considering how playful that Sport mode is on dry grippy Italian pavement, my Lord, imagine the fun we could have in a Canadian winter playground.

Unfortunately, this Yaris version won’t be coming to Canada, mainly because Toyota doesn’t sell the Yaris north of the 49th anymore. What we will get in its stead will be a GR’ed Corolla. On the down side, the Corolla is bigger, heavier, and, well, it still has its rear doors (sounds like a lack of commitment to me, Toyota). On the other hand, the little 1,618-cc sees its turbo boost turned up to the tune of 43 extra horses, for 300 hp — that’s 100 hp per piston, and almost 200 hp per litre(!) by the way — and torque spikes to 273 lb-ft. The same three-mode GR-AWD system makes the transition, as do the Torsen differentials. Michelin Pilots make the grade as well, and they’re even a bit bigger — and, we’ll assume, grippier — at 235/40R18.

The big question — besides price, which we can assume will be well north of CDN$40,000 — is will the Corolla GR be as playful as the Yaris version, or will our North American sense of propriety rob it of some of the Yaris’ fiestiness? Subaru’s recent WRX — not to mention Volkswagen’s GTi — got faster and more powerful with each generation, but with each augmentation in performance, they also became less engaging. Frankly, it’s been a long time since either was actually fun to drive. Here’s to hoping that the GR Corolla doesn’t succumb to the same disease.

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