Toyota GR Yaris (2025) Launch Review

Toyota South Africa Motors has released the 2025 GR Yaris, replete with improved power and torque, the option of an automatic transmission, plus a host of other detail upgrades. We take the latest iteration of Toyota’s most distilled GR model for a spin!

In today’s hyper-homogenised motoring world, in which car manufacturers would much rather copy each other’s work than risk introducing something truly original, the 2025 Toyota GR Yaris is as close as dammit to a cult car – a latter-day unicorn that pays homage to apex road-going rally cars iconised by the Subaru Impreza WRX STI and Mitsubishi Lancer Evo that ruled the WRC from the late 1990s to the early 2000s. Those (now long-discontinued) road rockets featured permanent all-wheel-drive, variable centre clutch arrangements (to shuffle torque fore/aft) and delivered physics-defying handling ability.

See also: Hyper hatches that keep the WRC spirit alive

However, it took Toyota until late 2019 to take a similar route and develop a ground-up production car around which its rallying programme could be built. It suffered a troubled birth: when the GR Yaris finally emerged, the FIA was intent on introducing a different set of rules called Rally1 for 2022 (hybridised with a space frame) – that decision instantly rendered Toyota’s painstaking design ineligible for competition.

Toyota never rallied it, but no matter…

Still, with the GR Yaris road car too close to maturation to pull the plug, the Aichi-based company, which had launched the GR Supra (co-developed with the BMW Group) in 2019, persisted with the project, and thank heavens it did. After all, the Gazoo Racing performance division was just hitting its stride in 2020; the GR Yaris followed its Supra sibling and paved the way for the 2nd-gen GR86 and GR Corolla models.

Now that the GR Supra is near the end of its model life, the feisty, visceral GR Yaris is the talisman, if not the kingpin, of the GR line-up. The 1st-gen GR Yaris arrived as a Frankensteinian creation; as if conjured through witchcraft. With the front end of a GA-B Yaris, the rear end of a GA-C Corolla and equipped with double-wishbone suspension all round, it was the hottest, most unhinged Toyota the world had seen.

Raw as iron from the forge, in manual form, the GR Yaris gifted its driver the analogue, hard-wired immersion so sorely lacking in modern cars, and the ultimate what-if fantasy of “if Toyota had decided to try beating Subaru and Mitsubishi at their own game in the late-1990s.” (Yes, arguably the ST205 Celica was a rival to these, but was being wound down just as the WRX STI and Lancer Evo hit their strides.)

See also: Treat a Toyota GR Yaris badly… and it will reward you

Minor exterior updates, apart from large-bore exhausts

Now, in 2025, Toyota South Africa Motors has introduced an automatic version as part of the 2nd-gen, 2025 GR Yaris line-up. Other than the upsizing of the now fist-sized exhaust tips that are impossible to ignore, the newcomer’s exterior updates are truly too minor to mention. All the more so when really the most notable – and important changes – have been made where they really matter.

For all its life-affirming purity, the 1st-gen Toyota GR Yaris was tainted by a poor driving position that made the driver feel as if they sat on the car rather than in it. By lowering the redesigned (and long-distance-friendly) front seats by 25 mm, the new car addresses this shortcoming quite satisfactorily.

The infotainment touchscreen has expanded to 12.3 inches in size and is angled more towards the driver, although in a car whose essence is to challenge the laws of nature, such trivialities don’t really feature.

Through a mishmash of internal upgrades – particularly cooling (take a bow, manual intercooler spray button) – the peak outputs of the 1.6-litre, 3-cylinder G16E-GTS turbopetrol engine have increased by 12 kW and 40 Nm respectively, to 210 kW at 6 500 rpm and 400 Nm from 3 250 to 4 100 Nm.

This translates to a 0.3-second saving when sprinting from the starting blocks to 100 kph, Toyota claims. That time – to 5.2 seconds – is incidentally and somewhat curiously identical to that of the manual!

It’s also worth knowing that the 2025 Toyota GR Yaris’ 8-speed paddleshift automatic is a conventional torque-converter-type transmission that intelligently – beyond the vehicle speed inputs – also monitors throttle and brake inputs to anticipate better-timed gear changes, at least according to Toyota.

See also: GR Yaris (2025) 8-speed auto explainer and rivals

No longer a weekend toy only

Under unhurried driving conditions, this self-shifting option does bring a degree of calm over the leash-tugging GR Yaris. So, too have slightly softer springs than before, along with the pairing of improved front sports seats and a reconfigured suspension setup, turned the otherwise fiery 3-door compact hatchback into a usable daily driver that urban dwellers no longer need to exclusively unleash over weekends.

It’s when the roads do clear, though, that the tough questions arise: if a Volkswagen Golf GTI or Hyundai i30 N is defined by a dual-clutch auto gearbox, how does a 2025 GR Yaris, whose very character is defined by its unfilteredness, react to a component that inevitably dilutes the purity of that purpose?

See also: GR Yaris (2025) 8-speed auto explainer and rivals

Advances in technology have seen to it that the torque converter is no longer a poor cousin of the dual-clutch transmission in performance circles; today, almost all contemporary BMW M cars employ the former to devastating effect in their most brutal drive modes.

Whether due to cost, reliability, engineering (or who knows?), Toyota has never employed a dual-clutch gearbox – not even in the Lexus LFA supercar. Expecting one, then, to feature in an uber-niche model, such as the GR Yaris, is not realistic. Bottom (but pedantic) line: only on track is the lack of crisp, near-instantaneous shifts noticeable. In every other scenario, the auto box enhances the Toyota’s usability.

2025 GR Yaris gains Gravel mode

The GR Yaris’ 60/40 front-rear drive apportioning remains unchanged in its default drive mode. Sport mode has disappeared (don’t worry – Track is still there) and has been replaced by Gravel mode. Each of the 3 drive modes heralds an adjustable share of torque that gets distributed according to surface-dependent propulsion requirements, with a maximum of 70% able to be sent rearwards.

On track that turns the GR Yaris into a weapon able to adjust its line mid-corner and refuses to understeer on corner exit. Volkswagen and sister brand Audi’s, as well as BMW and Mercedes-Benz’s, all-wheel-drive systems are all fundamentally front-biased. That means they still ultimately push wide under power because of the limited percentage of torque sent to the rear. It almost beggars belief that in the Honda Civic Type R, 235 kW is sent to the front wheels that have to additionally steer and brake!

But the GR Yaris implores its pilot to get on the power progressively early, safe in the knowledge that the unused torque will be shuffled to the rear to fire the car out of corners. With so much grip being applied so intelligently, it’s hard to imagine anything costing less being faster on a wet or washboard road.

See also: Toyota GR Yaris (2021) Review (incl. track video)

What does the 2025 Toyota GR Yaris cost in South Africa?

Ah, cost. That 4-letter word. The 2025 Toyota GR Yaris automatic will set you back R971 300. Faintly ludicrous, that’s Fortuner VX money for a 3-door hatchback (offered in Platinum White Pearl, Lunar Black, Glacier White, Fierce Red and Midnight Grey exterior paint finishes), which has the same luggage capacity as a shoebox and needs to be serviced every 10 000 km (covered by the service plan, but still).

Toyota GR Yaris 1.6T GR-Four Rally 6-spd manual	R942 200
Toyota GR Yaris 1.6T GR-Four Rally 8-spd auto	R971 300

Prices (October 2025) include a 3-year/100 000 km warranty and a 9-service/90 000 km service plan.

New Toyota GR Yaris Specs & Prices in South Africa

Find a new/used Toyota GR Yaris listed for sale on Cars.co.za

Summary

However, this is a car that, in the age of Greta Thunberg, environmental wokeness and the relentless war on speed, shouldn’t really exist. With the Hyundai i30 N no longer for sale in South Africa (although it may come back, at some point) at that price, nothing else new will provide the same thrills, ask so little, while rewarding so generously, and whose virtues are so exquisitely crafted from function over form.

History and art exist to immortalise not the ordinary, but those who chose to defy the odds, often at a huge cost, which makes the Toyota GR Yaris – as a future classic – the ultimate act of rebellion.

Welcome to the revolution.