Looking Back at Toyota’s Recent Hot Hatches and the Next Yaris GRMN

Its hot hatches have never been among the most extreme, and usually not as powerful as rival offerings, yet this is about to change with the manufacturer’s new commitment to make sportier and more fun cars.

Take the 2001 Toyota Yaris T Sport, a car that faced stiff supermini-based hot hatch opposition in the early 2000s. At that time, it had to face off against the Renault Clio RS 172, the Peugeot 206 RC or the Ford Fiesta ST, all of which had 2.0-liter engines and at least 150 horsepower (the Peugeot actually had 180 horsepower and was the most powerful hot hatch in its size bracket).

Toyota’s Yaris T Sport waded into battle with a weedy 1.6-liter engine that only made 106 horsepower and it was quite slow compared to its rivals. And it didn’t even look that exciting, even though the visual modifications that were made to it did help it stand out.

The Japanese giant was clearly playing it safe with the Yaris T Sport and people who wanted to buy a hot hatch weren’t exactly looking for that. That’s probably why it wasn’t a big hit and it was eventually discontinued without anybody really giving it a second thought - it vanished and nobody missed it.

People looking for a slightly larger sporty Toyota hatch had the option to go for the Corolla T Sport. However, that was even more underwhelming than the Yaris T Sport and in the official press blurb at the time, all Toyota could say about it was that it “makes full use of the power and refinement available while innovative suspension, including the rock-solid performance dampers and rebound springs, reinforce the car's reputation as a true sports model. “

Sure, it was better to drive than the regular Corolla, but that generation Corolla really didn’t set your heart on fire on a twisty road. It drove okay, but it really lacked zest, the kind of zest that rivals such as the first-gen Ford Focus had regardless of which version we’re talking about.

After these two lackluster T Sport models were discontinued, there was more than a ten year hiatus before Toyota decided it was a good time to try and do another hot hatch. This time, however, the result was much-much better, even if its name is kind of stupid - they called it the Yaris GRMN (short for Gazoo Racing Meisters of the Nurburgring).

Silly name aside, there was nothing silly about its performance. Unlike in the early 2000s when its Yaris-based hot hatch was the slowest and least extreme, the Yaris GRMN took an entirely different approach.

It was a limited-edition model (only 400 units reached Europe) that was very expensive and quite extreme. It not only had a reinforced chassis, but also an all-important Torsen limited-slip diff and some really big brakes.

Why did it need all these improvements? Well, it was powered by a 1.8-liter engine supercharged to make 209 horsepower and 250 Nm (184 pound-feet) of torque. The sprint to 100 km/h (62 mph) was dealt with in 6.3 seconds and its top speed was 230 km/h and it was touted as the fastest and most extreme hot hatch in its size class.

Reviewers really enjoyed driving it, saying it was unexpectedly good given Toyota’s history of either not trying hard enough with its hot hatches, or not trying at all.

Now, a new Yaris has been revealed, and while the automaker has yet to make any announcements regarding a potential hot hatch variant, that didn’t stop us from trying to picture what one might look like. The new Yaris already looks quite sporty, so it took all the extra sporty bits we added on it quite well - it even works really nicely with the brash yellow paint job.

If Toyota does make it, it will probably apply a similar treatment to the first Yaris GRMN. Plop a big 1.8-liter blown four-pot under the hood, strengthen everything up, beef up the brakes and suspension and that’s pretty much it - the classic hot hatch formula.

We have good reason to suspect that a new Yaris GRMN is on its way because the company did confirm it’s thinking about making a hot hatch version of its latest Corolla too. And this would all tie in nicely with the image change it’s trying to enforce, in order to distance itself from its previous image as a maker of reliable but ultimately boring cars.