Gazoo Racing … funny name, riotous cars. Especially the baby.

TOYOTA GR Supra

Price: $98,990

Powertrain and economy: 3.0-litre turbo inline six, 285kW/500Nm, 8-speed automatic, RWD, combined economy 7.7L/100km.

Vital statistics: 4379mm long, 1292mm high, 1865mm wide, 2469mm wheelbase, luggage capacity 290 litres, 19-inch alloy wheels.

We like: Improved performance and driving feel, sounds better too.

We don't like: Tight for headroom, misses out on best iDrive format.

TOYOTA GR Yaris

Price range: $54,990

Powertrains: 1.6-litre petrol inline three-cylinder petrol turbo with 200kW/370Nm, six-speed manual transmission, AWD, combined economy 7.6L/100km.

Vital statistics: 3995mm long, 1455mm high, 1805mm wide, 2558mm wheelbase, luggage capacity 141 litres, 18-inch alloy wheels.

We like: The entire concept, a stupendous achievement.

We don't like: Driver’s seat set a touch too high, they can’t build it fast enough.

THE old axiom about actions speaking louder than words?

From impression gained from driving the two cars it offers in New Zealand, it’s emphatically true for Gazoo - potentially at a faster rate than those who still ask ‘Ga-who?’ might imagine.

If ever there’s ever a safe bet to be laid, it’s that Toyota’s quirkily-named, come-from-nowhere motorsports and performance road car division, Gazoo Racing, aka GR, is well on the way to become a Manga-quality mega hero.

Two cars in, GR Supra and GR Yaris, and so many more to come … next year’s GR 86 coupe, a GR Corolla rumoured to share the GR Yaris’s all-wheel-drive hardware and the pinnacle achievement, a $1 million-plus two-seater exotic hypercar based on the Le Mans-winning Toyota TS050 endurance racer, but road legal, with a race-proven twin-turbo V6 hybrid engine. That’s the GR Super Sport, built by the same people who gave the world the astounding Lexus LFA, which in development raced with Gazoo branding.

And that’s just from GR proper. In the wings are two other sub-families, each playing to an extreme.

One is GRMN; Gazoo Racing Meisters of Nurburgring. GRMN’s job is to deliver treatments reserved for track-focussed models. GRMN versions of GR Supra and GR Yaris are already in development.

At the other end of the scale, there’s ‘GR Sport’, an accreditation for cars that will adopt some of the hardcore look, none of the wallop. They’ll have sporty styling cues and modified suspension; a similar approach to that taken by Ford with its ST and ST Line cars and Hyundai with N and N-Line ranges. The C-HR is confirmed. Perhaps the RAV4, the Hilux and the next-generation, aka 300-Series, Land Cruiser might also benefit.

So there’s a lot going on; enough to suggest it’s only a matter of time before the the Gazoo name carries the same cachet with the general motoring public as AMG, BMW M and Audi’s RS.

Which brings us back to what’s here now. GR Supra, with an update that leaves it closer to being what it supposedly should always have been – in simple terms, a Toyota-designed take on the BMW Z4, specifically the range-topping M40i - and GR Yaris.

Both great for brand cred, not so good for Toyota’s bottom line; the make tacitly admits the true cost of the GR Yaris especially, through being so specialist (the only exterior parts from the ‘donor’ are headlights, tail-lights, wing mirrors, and shark-fin antenna), is way higher than what they charge customers. Don’t feel bad. Toyota doesn’t. Particularly unfussed is Toyota’s chairman, Akio Toyota. He’s a petrolhead, with a genuine passion for motorsport – expressed in hands-on fashion, notably when he raced the LFA in the daunting Nurburgring 24 Hour – he says cars like these will lift Toyota’s image. Hard to disagree.

His ‘no matter what’ resolve was tested by the GR Yaris. The tester being stickered up as a WRC works car made for an eye-catching but somewhat ironic exercise, given this car now won’t ever get to test its mettle in the World Rally Championship.

No, really, it’s true. When Toyota heads into the 2021 season, it’ll be with the same double drivers’ title (2019, 2020) winning car it’s been campaigning since 2017, not this new one which, despite being created with express intent of taking over that job for this year and next, before handing over to a new car designed for 2022’s hybrid category, now cannot. Coronavirus disruption did for the car, sadly.

Such a shame we’ll never see it compete. Such a great relief Toyota didn’t junk the spin-off road-legal model, demanded to fulfil homologation requirement, or dilute its special fundamental ingredients.

Everything demanded for competition - from the unique bodyshell with carbon fibre roof through to that complex four-wheel drive with limited-slip differentials on both axles and, far from least, the world’s most powerful three-cylinder engine - comes to the street, with reminder of what could have been provided by the plaque near the handbrake that reads 'developed for FIA World Rally Championship.

Such a delight that the good work undertaken by Toyota under guidance from its rally experts, led then by no less than four-time world champ Tommi Makinen (he’s since been elevated to be come Toyota’s global motorsport advisor), to create the first properly bespoke model from Toyota in two decades since Celica GT-Four (from which it steals the internal power-per-litre title) works brilliantly on the road.

How good is this car? Here’s an example: I drove it and the updated Supra across the same roads and found they maintained much the same pace and achieved much the same travel time.

The difference was in the conditions on their respective days. The Supra took on a favourite, and eminently challenging road, on a dry day. When the Yaris took on the same run a week later, it was in the heaviest rain I’ve experienced this year. And yet … well, it simply stunned. And, just to reinforce, while each car was driven swiftly, each exercise was with respect to safety. So, no careless crossing the centre line, little tyre-squealing, no disregard for posted speed limits.

Sure, if contest is considered, it needs to be as here; right roads, right days. In a straight line, the in-house GR fight is emphatically a one-way contest. As big-hearted as that tri-cylinder feels and sounds (though how much of that note is real, how much synthesised is fair to ask), with 0-100kmh in 5.2 seconds, the berserk baby is almost a full second behind GR Supra in a sprint to the highway limit.

It’s when A to B is reached, as it was on my days, via sinuous and continual cornering … well, that’s where the GR Yaris’s alacrity and athleticism, mostly in third gear (which it can hold from 60kmh to around 114kmh) is all the more gut-pounding. There were occasions when I had to slow to take a breath. Honestly, it’s that relentlessly rapid and rabid.

I mean, it’s not as if I wasn’t prepared. I know rally-set specials; having had wheel-time in virtually every Evo and STi, the Escort and Sierra Cosworths, even an Integrale Evo (ok, that was as a passenger). Funnily, the most memorable of those was … you guessed it, the Tommi Makinen Lancer Evo 6.5, tried in fully unrestricted form, owned then by one of several friends who hold NZ national rally titles. I wish I could have shared the GR with those guys, gauged their impressions.

It’s not just the sheer energy that leave indelible impression that this is a tangible effigy of what might have been a championship-winning racer; the sheer surgical precision of the thing is equally awe-inspiring. A chassis that exploits Toyota’s New Global Architecture platforms (TNGA) by combining an existing Yaris ‘GA-B’ platform up front, with Corolla’s ‘GA-C’ underpinnings towards the rear might sound make-do, but it does really nicely. Brakes with rotors larger than those on the Supra, top-shelf tyres – Michelin Pilot Super Sports, as per Supra, though in smaller size - speak to the quest for perfection with this exercise.

Even moreso the 'GR-four' all-wheel-drive system. The main component is a multi-plate clutch coupling unit located in the back of the car, in front of its rear differential, but further tricks include differing final-drive ratios front to rear, in order to assist in torque manipulation. The system has a theoretical torque-split range, front to rear, from 100 to 0:100, but this is not possible in reality.

What is possible is 60:40 in Regular mode, 50:50 in Track mode, or 30:70 in Sport mode, the latter often being the go-to for most of the driving I entertained, because it makes the car more tail-biased; almost like a rear-drive car, certainly better than some previous rally-ready and even some current road-tuned AWD cars.

You need work the six-speed manual, but that’s part of the joy. The pedal set also feels entirely designed around heel-toe footwork (if you’re not so flash, the car features auto-blipping) and when into the zone, it’s one of the most communicative cars I’ve met; the purity of its driver focus is something else.

On that point, bear in mind that when driven with enthusiasm somewhat of an ‘anti-passenger’ car. Rally cars need navigators because otherwise the driver wouldn’t have an edge; in the GR Yaris, anyone occupying the left-side seat might find it too overwhelming an experience if the driver treats favourite roads as special stages as the G-loadings are pretty high. Also, with such a petite frame and all-wheel-drive nature, it changes direction fiercely, turns in sharply, and puts its power down abruptly. Yes, it WILL oversteer, even with all driving aids on, but even then the car’s nature is very wham-bam.

If you wanted a fast car experience and hoped to keep your stomach contents intact, the Supra is the better choice, as it has a more ‘natural’ transition. By degree. It also stomps pretty hard, now. The Yaris adds additional hooligan edge in that tugging on the handbrake triggers the car to disconnect drive to the rear wheels, which is a cool thing for those out to finesse their inner Gigi Galli (don’t know him? Go to YouTube, all is revealed).

The YAris engine is simply epic. Incredibly strong for its capacity and cylinder count; the road tune undoubtedly dictates a greater degree of flexibility to the tune than any race engineer would want but it’s not soft. Max torque piles on in the midrange and the power curve is muscular. Heavy-footed blast-offs are happily accepted, though only when the engine is properly warmed. It’ll remind you to go easy until the temps are right.

Both GRs strike a great look. The Supra’s special edition blue brilliantly highlights the complexity of this shape; reinforcing how the rear end in particular is full of aggression and intent, with its wider high-performance tyres, big aerodynamic diffuser and outrageously shaped lights. The centrally mounted reversing light and the shape of the front bumper are specifically designed to invoke the raised nose of a modern F1 racer. A surprising tribute given how poorly Toyota did in that arena.

The Yaris doesn’t need stickers to reinforce its rally-ready aura. The aerodynamically proficient wide body treatment, the squat stance and impression of it being abnormally wider than it is tall; it’s awesome. The latter is no trick of the eye. Makinen insisted the regular Yaris roofline be lowered and lightened; hence the carbon-fibre composite roof skin. I’d love to see it with a big WRC wing. So, apparently, does GRMN. Their prototype seen testing (at the Nurburgring, of course) had this, vented front guards and a more aggressive front spoiler. Hey, why not?

Slip inside each and it’s the smaller car that feels more spacious, certainly better served for headroom. Supra’s roof design really makes it a tough car for the tall. Side visibility is also limited; you really have to be careful at intersections. With Yaris, it’s the direct ahead view that’s slightly compromised. Looking slightly left you find need to duck to see between the top of the centre infotainment screen and the bottom of the rear-view mirror. When it’s raining, you wish the right-side wiper would sweep closer to the A-pillar; as-is there’s just a sliver of dirty screen to peer around when apexing. A slightly lower seat would be brilliant.

Back in the day, WRXs and Evos had cruddy interiors because the makers knew most owners would rip ‘em out during transformation for competition. It’s not quite like that in the GR Yaris, but you can see where the effort has been made – namely, the Alcantara and faux-leather sports seats and the perfect-sized, GR-branded steering wheel – and where its been relaxed: Plain looking plastics, the infotainment system being nothing particularly flash in respect to operability (though it does have JBL internals).

Supra has higher quality trim but so it should, given the price. Even so, the iDrive is still a whole generation behind the Z4s. The very good reputations of their manufacturing bases – the old LFA line in Japan for Yaris, the Magna Steyr facility in Austria for Supra – shows in their assembly quality. The Yaris has extra kudos from being literally hand-built.

They’re patently very different cars, yet have a commonality in being cars you can truly celebrate. Simply that they exist is wonderful.

If you had to pick just one, it’d have to be the Yaris. No argument, the Supra has become a better car; the engine is much better in this new tune. Changes to the suspension and steering tune also enhance the enjoyability.

And yet, in years to come, when drinks are being shared and tall tales told, it’s less likely to be the primary subject of a ‘my best GR’ reminiscence.

That honour has to fall to the GR Yaris. It is, quite simply, a giant; the start of something really big.