When the Toyota GR Yaris was unveiled, the hype surrounding the tiny hot hatch was extremely high, to say the least. Consider our market lucky that we got the GR Yaris and with all the optional performance packs that made it such an excellent car in the first place. North America isn’t so lucky, however, as they are missing out on such a fun and fast hot hatch. Fortunately, however, they might get a taste of the GR Yaris in the form of the GR Corolla.
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Toyota USA’s latest Instagram post, which consists of a Corolla hatch in a container yard, gives us plenty of not-so-subtle hints of the upcoming high-performance version of the humble Corolla. Take a closer look at the left side of the photo, and you’ll see a Corolla wearing the signature Gazoo Racing camouflage with the words “GR-Four” written on its side.
There are more easter eggs in the photo, mind you. Take a look at the words and numbers written on the red container on the upper left of the blue Corolla hatch. It says “NA G16 GR FOUR”, which, if you know the specs of the GR Yaris hot hatch, you will know what the seemingly random numbers, letters and words mean.
We’re not quite sure what NA means, though we speculate it could indicate that the GR Corolla was developed for the North American market. NA could also mean naturally aspirated, but this speculation does not make sense, because G16 pertains to the G16E-GTS 1.6-liter three-cylinder gasoline engine that powers the GR Yaris is actually turbocharged.
Lastly, GR-Four definitely pertains to the hot hatch’s all-wheel drive (AWD) system, which has the ability to vary torque from a front-biased 60:40 split to a rear-biased 30:70 split. If that’s not enough, you can get an optional Torsen limited-slip differential (LSD) that’s fitted GR Yaris with the Circuit Pack (which fortunately our market gets), and this allows power to be shuffled from left to right, depending on the speed and road conditions.
This latest teaser comes just after a month when Toyota USA also posted a photo of a normal Corolla hatch, but with also a few easter eggs that are easier to miss.
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If you check out the clock on the digital gauges, it reads “G:16”, which again indicates the engine. One of the roads in the navigation reads “GR-Four”, which, as mentioned earlier, refers to the hot hatch’s AWD system. The climate control displays the numbers 2 and 68, which indicates that the upcoming hot hatch may have 268 horsepower, exactly the same figures as the GR Yaris. Lastly, you can see a hot hatch barrelling down the dirt road, and while the view of it is pretty blurry, it’s easy to spot that this is a bigger hatch compared to the GR Yaris.
With these sneaky teasers decoded, we can confirm that North America will be getting their own taste of a Toyota Gazoo Racing hot hatch. Considering that the Toyota GR Corolla will be bigger and most likely more practical than the three-door GR Yaris, do you think that this will be a better hot hatch? Would you like Toyota Motor Philippines to bring this car in?
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