The Toyota GR Yaris Is About To Get Even Better

We really quite like the Toyota GR Yaris. We may have mentioned this once or twice before. Sadly, you can’t currently order our 2024 Car of the Year in the UK, as last year's models only came over here in limited numbers, but we’re hoping it’ll come back soon, especially because Toyota’s just announced a raft of changes for 2025 that should make it even better.

They’re largely marginal tweaks, with European versions still getting the same 276bhp from their 1.6-litre turbo triple (300bhp in Japan – thanks, emissions rules), but they should serve to make the feisty little all-wheel drive hatch just that little bit better.

Firstly, Toyota has recalibrated the eight-speed automatic gearbox that became an option last year, increasing the rev range at which you can downshift. This is most welcome, as one of our gripes with this otherwise very good gearbox was that it sometimes wouldn’t let you bang it down a gear quite as soon as you might like. It’ll also now cling onto gears longer when you’re accelerating uphill in automatic mode.

Elsewhere, the bolts that fasten suspension components to the chassis are new, with wider heads and thicker flanges. Told you these were marginal changes. Regardless, though, Toyota says this will bring gains in steering response and straight-line stability. To accommodate these all-singing, all-dancing, wider-headed, thicker-flanged bolts, the damping force of the shocks has been changed, bringing claimed improvements to both chassis control and ride comfort.

Toyota’s called in its factory Super GT and Super Formula driver Kazuya Oshima to have a fiddle with the GR Yaris’ power steering settings. Perhaps the thing we’re most excited about, though, is the range-wide availability of a rally-style vertical handbrake, which should be easier to yank and get a skid going. On a closed course with a professional driver, obviously.

Finally, the Toyota Safety Sense suite of ADAS systems are now standard across all models in Japan, and – we hope you’re sitting down for this one – automatic versions now get a bigger footrest. Game changing, we know.

Although it might have changed a bit underneath, the GR still looks pretty much exactly the same as before. Unless, that is, you opt for the new factory-fit Aero Performance Package, which we first saw previewed at the Tokyo Auto Salon in January. This brings a raft of new aero bits, most notably a vented aluminium bonnet and an adjustable rear spoiler, but it’s only been confirmed for Japan so far.

The good news is that the uprated GR Yaris is already available to order in mainland Europe – we can only keep our fingers crossed that a return to the UK is on the cards, too.