Toyota Yaris GRMN successor to be mass-production model

Toyota and Gazoo Racing are already planning a successor to the Yaris GRMN hot hatch, which will be a mass-production model and serve as a homologation base for the next WRC rally car.

Speaking with the UK’s AutoExpress, Shigeki Tomoyama, senior manager for Gazoo Racing, said: “We know our current situation and we believe that we need to change the platform for the rally car to be even more competitive”.

“For the next generation of rally Yaris we will prepare a homologation road car. We have to commit to producing 25,000 of them in one year, so it won’t be a limited edition like [the] GRMN” – which is limited to 400 units in Europe.

When asked about what changes the company would make compared to the current GRMN variant, Tomoyama gave several points, but didn’t go into great detail.

“There will be some differences in the suspension pick-up points, because suspension travel is a big factor in WRC,” he said.

“Also we would be lighter in some areas, because that could allow our rally team to move weight around”. Most rally cars are below the minimum weight, and the teams are able to position ballast strategically for better handling.”

“This is the sort of thing we are looking at,” Tomoyama told us. “But in the meantime, we’re focused on winning the championship with the current Yaris next year,” he added.

It’s believed that the new hot Yaris will launch with the next-generation hatch, sometime around 2020. The current version was first released in 2011, and has received a couple of facelifts since then – the most recent being earlier this year alongside the release of the GRMN.

The current Toyota Yaris GRMN is powered by a 1.8-litre supercharged four-cylinder engine, sending a meaty 156kW of power and 250Nm of torque to the front wheels via a six-speed manual transmission.

According to the company, its hot Yaris can sprint from 0-100km/h in just 6.3 seconds, on its way to an electronically-limited top speed of 230km/h.

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