No sooner has the Supra become available with manual than a Toyota high-up has revealed the hotshot Yaris and Corolla are going to offer with an auto.

PURITY of driving experience being the reason why two Japan-pure Gazoo Racing hotshots, the GR Yaris and GR Corolla, restrict to a manual gearbox hasn’t proven persuasive – so the brand has capitulated and is developing automatic versions of both. 

This from the chief engineer for the GR Corolla, Naoyuki Sakamoto, on a visit to Australia this week to launch the all-wheel-drive hatch, whose full New Zealand debut is occurring at Toyota Gazoo Racing Festival, the annual brand outing for enthusiasts running in Cromwell at the end of March. 

Sakamoto is quoted by the GoAuto website as say those in charge at Toyota Japan want an auto option for GR Corolla and GR Yaris buyers to choose, if they wish.

That transmission is thankfully not a version of the constantly variable technology that fits into all mainstream light to medium Toyota passenger fare. Nor, though, is it a direct-shift, the type preferred on other celebrated hot hatches, such as the Volkswagen Golf GTI and Golf R, Hyundai i30 N and soon-to-end Megane RS. 

Instead, Toyota has chosen to go old school, with a traditional torque convertor type. Testing is under way, this being conducted in part in a GR Yaris for the Japanese rally team.

That more likely means a car running in Japan’s domestic rallying championship, rather than the full-blown works machines developed for the World Rally Championship. Gazoo Racing has responsibility for both involvements.

Gazoo Racing was the right outfit, Sakamoto says, to work on the development of a production-ready auto transmission. Everything comes down to how it copes in the challenging environments under which it will need to perform. So rigorous testing is required.

 “We have joined the rally series with a GR Yaris with automatic transmission, and with each rally if we find some issues, we improve it. Such kind of activity is the central idea of the GR company – always from motorsports development,” he told GoAuto.

Sakamoto says in markets where automatic transmissions account for the vast majority of vehicle sales, that having such an option for buyers was always a matter of when, not if.

Currently, the only GR with automatic is the Supra … which, ironically, recently issued with a manual because Toyota felt the car, a co-effort with BMW (their’s being the Z4) lacked for something without it having a hand shifter and three pedals. The GR86, again created with Subaru (though this the BRZ isn’t coming here) is also manual-only.

Sakamoto told the website the auto will have to be decent, else it risks being junked.

“The automatic transmission needs to be good enough for the sportscar, not just easy driving. That is a minimum requirement for the GR model. So if we can’t achieve that, maybe we have to give up.”

The transmission’s actions and traits won’t be allowed to dilute the hardcore nature of GR hatches; they will continue to be offered with the same engine and Toyota’s adjustable GR-Four all-wheel drive system.

 “Basically it should not affect that – the transfer coupling is just (behind) the transmission, so the transmission itself doesn’t affect the all-wheel drive system,” the website reports.

  The GR Corolla and GR Yaris models use a common 1.6-litre three-cylinder turbo-petrol engine, but in the Corolla it makes 221kW, a 21kW lift on the Yaris. Power to weight is similar, because the larger car is almost 200kg heavier. In either application, maximum torque comes to 370Nm. The Yaris is 0.1 second faster to 100kmh, with a claimed time of 5.2 seconds.

Both have the ability to switch to 30/70 or 50/50 torque splits for performance and track driving, although the extreme Sport setting in Yaris is labelled Rear in Corolla.