I am generally a man who appreciates the finer, softer things in automotive life. On any given day, my ideal ride is one that isolates me from the external chaos of South African roads, treats speed as a polite bonus and prioritises a supple ride over a stiff chassis.
I like my commutes calm, my suspension soft and my stress levels kept to a minimum. In other words, I am no speed demon but rather my car is a sanctuary from the world.
But things can change sometimes. One of those times being when Toyota hands you the keys to the facelifted GR Yaris, equipped with their new eight-speed GAZOO Racing Direct Automatic Transmission (GR-DAT).
The automatic transmission is a new addition to the GR Yaris and I’ll admit that I approached the vehicle with a fair amount of professional skepticism. I expected a watered-down version of a rally icon — a compromises-built vehicle meant to appease the masses who cannot, or choose not to, operate a traditional manual gearbox.
Instead, this pocket rocket grabbed me violently by the collar, thoroughly shook my comfort-first philosophy and left me completely up in arms. It turns out, you do not need a third pedal to experience pure, unadulterated motoring euphoria. In fact, removing the clutch might have actually made the experience even more manic.
The pure legacy of a homologation special
To appreciate why the GR Yaris feels so entirely divorced from anything else on the showroom floor, you have to look at its DNA. This isn’t a run-of-the-mill city commuter that was simply sent to the gym and slapped with an aggressive body kit. It is a genuine homologation special—a race car forced into civilian clothes.
It exists solely because Akio Toyoda, the brand's master driver and former CEO, was obsessed with dominating the World Rally Championship (WRC). To satisfy global motorsport regulations, Toyota was legally obligated to build thousands of road-legal versions of their rally weapon for the general public.
The result is a vehicle that shares almost absolutely nothing with the standard Yaris hatchback.
The roofline has been lowered, the rear suspension has been completely swapped out for a sophisticated double-wishbone setup and weight-saving carbon fibre and aluminum have been utilised wherever possible. It is a purpose-built racing tool that somehow bypassed corporate sanity to end up with a license plate.
Purists might scoff at the idea of an automatic gearbox being added to such a legendary lineage. They might argue that a vehicle birthed on gravel stages demands a manual stick shift to remain authentic.
They might be wrong.
Toyota didn’t just slap a torque-converter on the GR Yaris to broaden its market appeal but they actually fitted a gearbox that is an absolute weapon of engineering precision.
Traditional performance automatics shift gears based strictly on vehicle speed, RPM and lateral G-forces. Essentially, they are reactive; they change gears based on what the car has just done.
However, the GR-DAT monitors your exact braking pressure, steering angles and throttle inputs and then anticipates your next move.
It drops gears aggressively and precisely before you turn into a corner, ensuring that the engine is singing exactly at the peak of its power band the moment you clip the apex.
In other words, it feels borderline telepathic.
The GR-DAT is paired to a 1.6-litre, three-cylinder turbocharged engine that has been significantly dialed up for this facelifted model to push out a staggering 210kW and 400Nm of torque.
The engine remains officially the most powerful 1.6-litre production engine in the world. It possesses the highest specific output of any road-car engine Toyota has ever built, effectively generating more horsepower per litre than many modern supercars.
When you drive it, you might find it surprising. You are not wrestling with a heavy clutch or a gear stick, so the only way to manage the record-breaking power is to keep your hands glued to the revised, lower-set steering wheel.
This allows you to focus entirely on the physics-defying grip of the GR-Four permanent all-wheel-drive system.
You can shift the torque split at the turn of a dial, sending more power to the rear wheels when you want to feel the chassis rotate or keeping it balanced when you need pure traction.
It is a raw, mechanical, immensely tactile experience that forces you to drive with your eyes wide open and your heart racing.
While it still looks very sporty and beautiful inside, it eliminates the big screens, the soft touch finishes and just focuses on pure driving. It was something I loved about the car. I didn’t care for the song I was playing but rather the sound the car was giving. I didn’t care about the cabin noise, I wanted to be the noise.
For a change, driving felt less like a point A to point B task and just became fun.
The verdict: Truly the hottest hatch?
The GR Yaris debuted in 2021 and has become a favourite amongst South Africans.
It is responsible for 38% of Toyota GR model sales since being introduced to the country.
But for it to truly be the hottest hatch around town, there’s a certain German counterpart that it has to compete with.
The Volkswagen Golf GTI has become the standard for hot hatches and while both the vehicles now feature rapid-fire, two-pedal automatic gearboxes, making them direct rivals for the attention of urban buyers, their automotive souls could not be further apart.
The Golf GTI remains a masterclass in executive refinement. It is smooth, spacious and infinitely polite while the GR Yaris is unashamedly hyperactive. It fidgets at low speeds, letting you know through every vibration that it would rather be flying down a dirt road at supersonic speeds.
At the end of the day, the GTI is undeniably a fast hatchback. The GR Yaris is a WRC race car that happens to have a boot which can fit a padel bag in it. It comes down to personal preference much like the Messi-Ronaldo debate.
Priced at R942 200 for the manual and R971 300 for the automatic, the automatic GR Yaris bridges the gap perfectly for a comfort-lover like me.
It gives you the absolute traffic-conquering ease of a two-pedal layout when you are forced to navigate a tight city center, but it retains 100% of the feral, gravel-spitting DNA that makes the GAZOO Racing badge legendary.