Today, at the 2024 Tokyo Auto Salon, the facelifted 2024 Toyota GR Yaris has debuted. As part of Toyota Gazoo Racing’s (TGR) pursuit of ever-better cars, the company has been implementing “driver-first car-making” through repeated “breaking and fixing” in extreme environments and reflecting feedback from professional race drivers and evaluation drivers, as well as from Toyota Motor Corporation Chairman and Master Driver Akio Toyoda, a.k.a. Morizo.
This time, under the slogan of “Thanks for breaking it” directed at the drivers who pushed the vehicle to its limits, TGR reflected drivers’ opinions not only in the vehicle’s power unit but also in its body, interior, exterior, and elsewhere to enhance vehicle performance comprehensively.
Improved Looks Designed To Take A Beating
First and foremost, let’s talk about the looks of the new GR Yaris. has a sportier design with more air vents. The steel mesh adds to the durability whilst also being easy to repair in the event of damage during motorsports use. The rear bumper has also been slightly updated, while the LED taillights have been reshaped so that it won’t be damaged by rocks or debris.
The taillights are also now connected by a full-width light bar to give it a distinct look at night. Basically, the overarching theme here is that Toyota wants you to use the GR Yaris as intended, which is why they concentrated in making it more durable externally as well.
An Interior Layout Born Out Of Motorsport
TGR has also improved the interior of the GR Yaris for 2024, giving it a completely new dash design that orients most of the vehicle’s controls towards the driver. This enables easy operation of the infotainment, the hazard lights, as well as the new, fully digital instrument cluster and new Toyota Audio Multimedia infotainment system. Adjustments to the positioning of the gear lever and the driving position also make the GR Yaris more ergonomic and easier to drive during rally and gymkhana courses.
In addition, customers in Japan can opt for a vertical parking brake, taking a page out of TGR’s GR Yaris WRC rally car. This will make it easier to execute handbrake turns during motorsports use.
More Power And A New 8-Speed Automatic
The 2024 Toyota GR Yaris now comes with a more powerful tuning to its 1.6-liter three-cylinder turbocharged gasoline engine, pumping out 304 horses and 400 Nm of torque (an upgrade from 272 hp and 370 Nm). As before, this drives all four wheels through a GR-Four all-wheel drive (AWD) with a Torsen limited-slip differential (LSD) at each axle. The variability of the AWD system’s torque split can either be 50/50 (evenly split), 30/70 (rear-biased), or 60/40 (front-biased) front-to-rear.
Perhaps the biggest headline change here is the new TGR-developed 8-speed automatic branded as Direct Automatic Transmission. It’s a completely new automatic transmission honed from motorsports usage, including rallying over snow-covered roads in Finland and driven by professional rally drivers.
The automatic transmission control software used has been optimized for sporty driving. While conventional gear shifting relies on sensing vehicle behavior, such as deceleration g-force, and speed, just to name a few, the optimized software also delicately senses the way the driver steps on the brakes and operates the accelerator. By doing so, it anticipates when gear shifting is necessary even before changes in vehicle behavior occur, realizing gear selection that reflects the driver’s intentions and, thus, leading to gear selection that is similar to how professional drivers shift gears.
The use of highly heat-resistant friction material in the automatic transmission’s gear-shift clutch and enhancements to the transmission’s control software have resulted in shifting speeds that can nearly match a dual-clutch transmission (DCT), but since it’s still a traditional torque converter automatic, it doesn’t suffer from any clunkiness of a DCT during low-speed driving. Lastly, The use of close-ratio gears, made possible by increasing the number of gears by switching from a 6-speed manual transmission to an 8-speed automatic transmission, means that the engine performs mostly within its optimal power band.
Beefed-Up Chassis Dynamics
TGR also did a lot of work to improve the handling of the GR Yaris. With the body structure, the number of bolts fastening the body to the shock absorbers has been increased from one to three to suppress alignment changes during driving, thereby increasing the responsiveness of vehicle behavior to steering operation and improving handling stability. By increasing the number of spot welding points by approximately 13% and expanding the areas where structural adhesive is applied by approximately 24%, body rigidity has been increased to improve handling stability and ride comfort.
Next is the addition of more drive modes. In particular, there is a new Circuit Mode, which brings out the full potential of the GR Yaris on track. These include anti-lag control and an increase in the speed limit of the speed limiter upon entering an area such as a circuit at which Circuit Mode can be activated, as determined by GPS location. Also, each function can be customized using a smartphone app.
Is It Coming To The Philippines?
Considering how the GR Yaris proved to be popular among car enthusiasts in the Philippines, Toyota Motor Philippines (TMP) will surely offer this improved hot hatch in our market, probably in late 2024 or early 2025. Expect a matching price increase as well, considering the sheer amount of upgrades the GR Yaris received.
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