Toyota will unveil its upcoming hot hatch version of the Yaris, a car directly inspired by the new Yaris WRC rally car, at this year’s Geneva Motor Show tomorrow, and it’s promising to be a real firecracker.
Officially called the Yaris GRMN, which stands for Gazoo Racing Masters of the Nurburgring, the go-faster Yaris is set to buck the trend in its class by opting for a supercharged 1.8-litre engine.
The vast majority of its rival cars, like the Ford Fiesta ST and Volkswagen Polo GTi, use smaller turbocharged engines, but the Yaris is going balls-out with big displacement and big power.
Toyota says that the supercharged engine is enough to produce around 206bhp, putting the little Yaris GRMN head and shoulders above its main rivals: the Fiesta ST only manages 197bhp.
0-62mph in around six seconds flat?
That extra dollop of power will also mean a good bit more speed, and it’s expected that the Yaris hot hatch could cover the 0-62mph sprint in six seconds flat, much faster than its class average of around 6.7 seconds.
As well as that, the car will also get a red-on-black paint scheme that’s a dead ringer for its rally-going counterpart, along with more aggressive looks and a large WRC-style rear wing.
Outside of that, it’s unclear what the exact specification of the Yaris GRMN will be, but suffice to say cramming it with almost double the power of the standard Yaris hatchback is a pretty good start…
