All proper, I win the prize for nominating the obvious headline-making new efficiency automotive of the yr; sluggish hand clap, and many others. I additionally just like the music of The Beatles, open fires, snug footwear, dwell sport and fish and chips for dinner. Maybe my tastes aren’t advanced. However I’m glad any individual went the apparent means with this. The good Toyota GR Yaris deserves completely nothing much less.
Frankly, earlier than we go any additional, I really feel the necessity to level out how unjustly I feel this automotive was denied our Britain’s Finest Driver’s Automotive title this yr. Sure, it rained. Granted, we have been testing over the unforgiving bumps, kerbs and cambers of Fort Combe circuit, which at all times by some means appear horrifying even after they’re bone dry. The chances have been very a lot set so {that a} steady, comparatively cheap, hustle-worthy four-wheel-drive scorching hatchback with simply sufficient energy and a wise set of tyres may sweep all earlier than it. And the Yaris very almost did.
However I’ve a sense that these judges who disadvantaged it of a prime rating weren’t voting on the idea of the driving expertise they’d simply loved, however quite in creativeness of 1 they may have had on a extra typical British day. It’s only a hunch. The foundations of the competitors have been, and stay, clear: you award factors in accordance with a automotive’s driver attraction, finish of. However maybe one or two seemed on the heavens, after which on the Ariel Atom 4, Lamborghini Huracán Evo and McLaren 765LT within the pitlane, and gave some further credit score to the vehicles they’d quite have taken residence and received again out on a balmy June weekend.
To me, Britain’s Finest Driver’s Automotive isn’t like a lot of our wider job as highway testers. It’s knockout soccer: the vehicles concerned both do it on the day, or they don’t. And, wow, did the GR Yaris ever do it. On the highway, it’s nothing in need of sensational. It’s received virtually every little thing you need in a correctly nutty little scorching hatchback: compact proportions, fluent and absorptive suspension, nice physique management, monumental traction and sufficient accessible efficiency to make you snigger out loud over and over.
On a moist observe, it impressed confidence like completely nothing else. It was totally imperturbable by way of standing water and located grip in locations the place among the supercars have been hopeless. And I simply didn’t perceive these voices who stated they needed extra liveliness and dealing with adjustability from the automotive. For me, dialling up Sport mode and chucking the Yaris by way of Bobbies and The Esses, backing it in on a trailing throttle and getting loads of change out of the rear axle with out ever flirting with catastrophe, that may have been essentially the most enjoyable I’ve had all yr.
The GR Yaris makes you develop horns, as the easiest driver’s vehicles so typically are likely to do. And but the unbelievable real-world tempo, unearthly composure at velocity and first-rate driver reward that it has appear so splendidly surprising and unlikely coming from a automotive like this. The absurdity and shock worth iare all a part of the attraction – and I’m smitten.
