JEREMY Clarkson has made the audacious claim that the new Toyota GR Yaris is as thrilling as a Porsche 911, in his five-star review of the car in today’s Sunday Times Magazine.
The hot supermini has been the darling of the motoring press ever since it hit roads in the latter stages of last year. Despite sharing a name with the rather more sedate Yaris, the two cars are very different beasts: on the body, the only shared components are the door mirrors and front and rear lights, while its 1.4-litre engine pumps out a substantial 261bhp. The limited GR Yaris, with its special sports components, takes ten times as long to construct as the standard model, in fact.
The result, says the columnist, is a car that feels a lot more expensive than its sub-£30,000 starting price. “You may think, if currently you drive a Porsche 911 or something of that ilk, that the Yaris GR, a small three-cylinder Japanese hatchback, would be quite a comedown, but it really isn’t,” he said.
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