Unveiled at the 2025 Tokyo Auto Salon, Toyota says the GR Yaris M Concept was designed to further explore the potential of the brand’s venerable pocket-rocket, with the manufacturer’s motorsport department — Toyota Gazoo Racing — planning on entering the mid-engined GR Yaris, which employs a turbocharged 2.0-litre four-pot, into the Super Taikyu Series.
Related: CPS 2023: Toyota GR Yaris 1,6 Rally – pure performance pedigree
With the GR Yaris M Concept, the brand will implement its ‘driver-first’ development process, in which a car is repeatedly driven to breaking point and, then, repaired in the extreme environment that is racing. Feedback from drivers is also incorporated.
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Toyota Gazoo Racing has previously mentioned that this process allows it to build better cars. And its the aforementioned Japanese endurance-racing series — in which commercially available cars compete — that has served as one of the proving grounds.
As a reminder, the stock-standard GR Yaris is powered by the Japanese automaker’s G16E-GTS engine. Locally, the 1.6-litre, three-cylinder turbo charged petrol unit is exclusively coupled with a six-speed manual cog swapper, sending 198kW and 360Nm of torque, the latter of which is available from 3 000r/min, to all four corners. The company claims a 0-100km/h sprint time of 5.5s. The top speed is rated at 230km/h.
However, in 2024, Toyota introduced an eight-speed self-shifter to the GR Yaris model line-up. Noteworthy, with the addition of the automatic transmission Toyota has uprated the turbo-triple powertrains peak power and torque outputs, to 224kW and 400Nm.
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