Toyota doesn’t sell the Yaris hatchback here in America anymore, instead offering the Corolla as its smallest model that you can buy stateside, which is a shame for small car fans like me. But with the 2024 European market Yaris now offering more power, an updated interior and a GR Sport trim that makes it surprisingly fun to drive, are we missing out more than ever?
Full disclosure: Toyota invited me down to its press garage in Hampshire to spend the day driving the 2024 Yaris. It set me up with two cars to drive with full tanks of gas, offered me lunch and dropped me back at the station to head home to London after it was all over. Thanks Toyota.
For the 2024 model, Toyota has given one of its smallest global cars a refresh on the exterior, an updated engine and a bunch of new tech to make driving the Yaris as easy as pie. To put all this newness through its paces, I’m spending the day in the GR Sport trim, which brings a whiff of the GR Yaris’ high-performance knowhow to the masses. The GR Sport model sits near the top of the Yaris tree with an on-the-road price of £28,805 (about $36,600), which is just £125 ($160) less than the top-tier Premiere Edition that Toyota says will only be offered for a limited time.
For about the price of a Subaru Forester in the U.S., Toyota will sell the Brits a five-seat hatch that’s powered by a 1.5-liter inline-3 engine with a hybrid system that produces 127 horsepower, up from 112 hp in the outgoing Yaris. The hybrid power comes from a 62-kW motor that is paired with a 740 wH battery. Torque has also increased in the new car, with Toyota claiming the new hybrid motor produces 185 Nm. A continuously variable transmission (CVT) is on hand to transfer that torque to the front wheels.
The hybrid motor under the hood makes the Yaris GR Sport surprisingly fun to drive. It’s snappy when I want to accelerate out of the corners and has plenty of power to manage the hills around Surrey. Toyota says the new car has enough under the hood to get from zero to 60 mph in 9.2 seconds and on to a top speed of 109 mph. That explains why the new Yaris is more than comfortable cruising at UK highway speeds, which are 70 mph, and can pass slow-moving traffic without breaking a sweat. When it’s time to ease off the power, the Yaris GR Sport has a set of disc brakes at each corner.
While the CVT isn’t as engaging as the manual Yaris I first learned to drive in, it is a damn sight smoother at selecting a gear than me or the car was back then, which will probably surprise nobody. Toyota says the new transmission has been tweaked to make it quieter and smoother, and I’m inclined to agree. There’s very little noise out of the CVT as I drive through the peaceful countryside, and it handles changing speeds on twisty, turny, up-and-down roads well.
When I’m not speeding around country lanes, the GR Sport is a pleasantly refined daily driver. It’s got great visibility all around for navigating England’s “Olde Worlde” towns, and the crisp backup camera makes parking and reversing a breeze. To remind you that this is a sensible city car rather than an all-out hot hatch, the fuel economy is also top notch, with Toyota rating it at more than 54 miles per gallon (on the UK cycle) and the car I’m testing averaging just over 47 mpg despite my… enthusiastic driving, let’s call it.
That increased efficiency is thanks to the new hybrid powertrain that features a more powerful 62kW motor, which is up on the 59 kW found in last year’s model. While the battery has the same specs as the old car, Toyota says it’s a new unit that offers double the recharge capacity and 50% more output compared with last year’s Yaris. Because of this, Toyota says the new car can operate in EV mode for “around 80 percent” of urban journeys, and can even hit speeds of up to 80 mph when you head out of town.
The GR Sport Yaris is about more than having fun on the highways, it’s about looking good doing it too. As such, the car’s exterior has been refined with a neat gloss black finish on the upper third, which is also found on the range-topping Premium model. The GR Sport trim also packs the car with gloss red GR badges, and there’s a set of exclusive 18-inch, 10-spoke rims, which I dig.
The updates to the new Yaris run even deeper, and that’s obvious when you step inside. In the GR Sport there’s a refreshed interior that packs in GR-badged sport seats up front, which come with some good lumbar adjustment that makes fitting them around my frame pretty straightforward. The center console of the car is now dominated by a 10.5-inch touchscreen that incorporates a ridiculously satisfying volume knob at its base. There are further real buttons to control the climate settings. However, I found it a little jarring that the two dials in the dash control the temperature on each side of the car, rather than one handling temperature and the other setting fan speed.
Elsewhere, there’s a pair of cupholders in between the two passenger seats, which fit a skinny water bottle easily but are too narrow for a Nalgene or my chunky insulated coffee cup. There’s a nice armrest above these, but it feels skinnier than you’d get on other models and was the first time I became aware of how small this car actually is.
The second row has a three-across bench seat, and the legroom behind the driving position that me and my six-foot frame needs is alright. I could probably manage being stuck back there for an hour or so, but I’d definitely need regular stretch breaks if I was a backseat passenger. Legroom aside, the back seats are well-padded and pretty comfy, so if you’re a bit less gangly than me it might not be such a squeeze.
Behind the second row is a decent trunk that Toyota says offers 10 cubic feet of storage. In normal speech, that means you could get a couple of carry-on cases back there or a week’s shopping for a hungry couple. If you need more space, the rear seats fold down in a 60:40 configuration to dramatically increase the storage space back there.
The practicalities continue, with Toyota fitting the entire 2024 Yaris range with safety tech like a pre-collision warning system that can detect pedestrians and lane-departure alerts. This tech is standard on every model in the new range, from the base Icon model, which starts at £22,630 ($28,800), up to the GR Sport that I drove.
The more budget-friendly models do, however, come with a less-powerful 114-hp hybrid motor and lack any ties to Toyota’s Gazoo Racing outfit. I think it would be a shame to zip around in the base Yaris knowing that the more powerful, more fun 127-hp model was out there. Sure, it’s not a lot more power, but it transforms the 2024 Yaris into a genuinely fun little car to blast around country lanes inside. What’s more, the styling updates on the GR Sport trim elevate the look of the car, such as the gloss black finish on the upper third and those exclusive 10-spoke rims, which I dig.
All in, the 2024 Yaris GR Sport is a well-featured, economical little car that is, probably, much closer to the kinds of daily drivers that we all should actually own. The increased fuel efficiency means it won’t break the bank when you’re stuck on the commute, and the increased power keeps it lively when you break away from the 9-5. What’s more, the styling updates on the GR Sport make it stand out from the crowd.
Sadly, Toyota has no plans to bring the Yaris over to the U.S., instead telling me that it’s committed to the Corolla as its smallest car in America. And try as I might to convince myself that this is a mistake, there’s a long line of fun, small cars that have failed in America, so I can see why Toyota plans to keep the Yaris GR Sport restricted to places where it will actually sell.
