Updated GR Yaris with Automatic debuts at Tokyo Auto Salon

Matador said:

my $0.02...

@justbake You (and many other mk4 owners/fans) are getting up in arms because you believe the Supra is still Toyota's flagship/Halo sports car. It's not, and that really is the simple crux of it.

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Matador said:

my $0.02...

@justbake You (and many other mk4 owners/fans) are getting up in arms because you believe the Supra is still Toyota's flagship/Halo sports car. It's not, and that really is the simple crux of it.

The Supra was not on the horizon when the RC was engineered, and @KahnBB6 is completely right.. the RC would have been a horrible platform mate for it.

I had a whole epistle thought out as to why things make sense being done the way they are, but.... not going to waste words. What's done is done, and I think the Toyota sports car lineup and performance car market is and will be better off for it. The Mk5 in half a year of US sales has already achieved about 1/4 of **all** Mk4 US sales over it's entire run.

Can we get back to talking about the GR Yaris and it's awesome drivetrain now?

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justbake said:

Did you mean to tag me in this? I have said multiple times above that the Mk5 didn’t need to be the halo car for Toyota like it was in the Mk4, nor do my opinions align with other Mk4 owners regarding the philosophy of this car, while also saying the RC platform isn’t fit for the Mk5.

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DesmoSD said:

This is exactly the problem and very dump on Toyota to not treat the MKV as a halo car. The name itself means 'above all'. I don't know how to say mediocre in Latin but that what describes the MKV.

I agree that the RC wasn't on the same timeline as the Supra but it could have followed the LC platform similar to how the SC did. The RC had potential if Lexus didn't Frankenstein the chassis and load it up like a pig.

Sales for the MKV might be 1/4 now but let's see how it does over a 5 yr span like the MKIV. Keep in mind the MKV wasn't hit by the EPA like the MKIV did in 96. I do see a lot of MKV's on the Autotrader and I'd expect those sales numbers to drop this year and following years until a re-fresh occurs.

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SupraFiend said:

Turbo motor ->

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justbake said:

Open deck yuck

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A notable omission in the GR Yaris’ all-wheel drive system is a centre differential. Instead, the car has a clutch pack sitting between the propshaft and the rear differential. The clutch unit is supplied by Toyota Group’s own company JTEKT and is described as being “lighter and smaller” than a Haldex-style clutch.

Speaking of, a Haldex clutch-type all-wheel drive system will run as front-wheel drive most of the time, sending power rearwards only when necessary. This isn’t the case with the GR Yaris’ setup, which is not an ‘on-demand’ system. Further separating it from Haldex, it’s capable of a rear-bias with a 30/70 default split given in ‘Sport’ mode. It’s 60/40 in ‘Normal’, while in Track, it’s 50/50.

The rear differential is geared one per cent faster than the front, allowing for the power transfer from front to rear which occurs via JTEKT’s clutch pack slipping. The differentials, meanwhile, are open as standard but swapped for Torsen limited-slip diffs if the Circuit Pack is specced.

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Before being shuffled out of the room with a GR Yaris on display alongside a body-less chassis, we cornered Robert Tickner, general manager of communications at Toyota Motor Europe, to see if we could get a hint.

“I’d be remiss if I didn’t ask, is there any indication of how much the GR Yaris is going to cost?”

Tickner smiles, but remains coy: “We’re still developing the price point at the moment.”

I press him, citing some of the wild guesses circulating online. He laughs: “I don’t think it’ll be quite that much. If you look at the price in Japan, which was revealed to be around four million yen, that converts to roughly £27,000. It won’t be a million miles away from that.”

Truthfully, we were surprised. To look at the Yaris GR, you can’t help but wonder what astronomical costs went into its development – and indeed will go into its manufacture.

“I assume the profit margins will be tight, then?” I follow. “Assuming there is a profit,” Tickner quips.

It seems Toyota doesn’t want to price enthusiasts out of the car. When you consider that it will have 24,000 of them to sell worldwide, that seems sensible. Production isn’t limited, either: 24,000 is just how many they have to produce to homologate the rally car. If they all sell and there’s demand, production will continue.

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Matador said:

https://www.motoringresearch.com/car-news/toyota-gr-yaris-cheaper/



Not to derail the discussion again, but I'm assuming here that Toyota decided to develop this 3 cylinder (but not the I6 for the Supra) for a few reasons;

- Not only will this car be used to homologate the 2021 WRC car, it will also be used as a development basis/homologation for their R5 Rally car, which they do not currently have (for 2021 also - I believe I recall Makinen stating somewhere that the hold up with an R5 car was because Toyota didn't have a suitable engine at the time).

- This engine or even whole power train can be adapted across Toyota's TNGA-B/C based vehicles for GR or GRMN and maybe even F models. There isn't much of a usage case scenario for an I6 outside of a Supra.

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DesmoSD said:

This is exactly the problem and very dump on Toyota to not treat the MKV as a halo car. The name itself means 'above all'. I don't know how to say mediocre in Latin but that what describes the MKV.

I agree that the RC wasn't on the same timeline as the Supra but it could have followed the LC platform similar to how the SC did. The RC had potential if Lexus didn't Frankenstein the chassis and load it up like a pig.

Sales for the MKV might be 1/4 now but let's see how it does over a 5 yr span like the MKIV. Keep in mind the MKV wasn't hit by the EPA like the MKIV did in 96. I do see a lot of MKV's on the Autotrader and I'd expect those sales numbers to drop this year and following years until a re-fresh occurs.

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KahnBB6 said:

Totally agree. With one exception and that being the potential tie-up with Mazda for their Skyactiv-X 2.5L and 3.0L I-6 engines in a few Toyota/Lexus products (mostly Lexus) such as the IS sedan, RC coupe (or another coupe positioned slightly above it... SC?) and a reborn Mark X performance sedan, all of which would according to rumor use that Mazda I-6 engine.

But... Mazda's I-6 engines are engineered at a minimum as 48V mild hybrids. It's doubtful they would be intended to use manual transmissions at all, nor would any of the above candidate Toyota/Lexus models realistically be even remotely planned for one at this point (which is very sad and disappointing to me but given how hard it is to get a manual Supra...).

Conceivably Toyota could have planned to share at least their own engine I-6 engine family between 3-5 such models including the Supra if the long hoods required weren't an issue for the luxury RWD/AWD models. However I think the fact that Toyota wanted to get a new Supra released into production BY 2019 to avoid even more stringent emissions, fuel economy and noise regulations was a significant factor.

Further, while this Mazda I-6 engine and RWD platform tie up is still just a rumor for now it's still telling in that: Toyota STILL didn't see the overall benefit to develop an I-6 engine of their own even for a handful of models that ostensibly are considered niche vehicle offerings in their mind.

Yet it is Mazda (who desperately want to move their brand upmarket but have few of the resources and huge cash reserves to do so) who had enough in their R&D coffers to design this new engine family of their own and supposedly a new RWD vehicle platform (or who are in the process of designing that platform) who might be able to achieve some of their goals by partnering further with Toyota beyond the Mazda2/Yaris and sharing these technologies the way Subaru and BMW did.

I also think maybe the idea of a TGNA or co-developed/shared Mazda RWD I-6 platform (which probably wasn't even a thing when the Supra MKV chassis started co-development with BMW) based Supra MKV for whatever reason wasn't appealing to Tada when he went to designing the flagship sportscar.

It seems like Toyota had a lot of catching up to do very fast after a long spell of making no sportscars at all and "fast" for an automaker takes years. Plus, looming ever more stringent government regulation deadlines complicate things even further. The GR Supra MKV began official development in 2012 just after the 86/BRZ/FR-S were first released.

It seems like the Yaris GR-4, at least in rally car trim before it was decided to homologate it as a production car, must have started as yet another concurrent project under GR not very long after that.

And then there's the Lexus division apparently just wanting to do their own thing these days very independently of the Toyota lineup or any platform and powertrain sharing. And that, in a way, makes me think just a bit that the 1990's Toyota/Lexus arrangement was a bit better since up and down the entire Toyota lineup there seemed to be few to no barriers to sharing platforms and R&D where it made sense to. But that philosophy appears to not be the case today between the mother division and luxury division.

There's also the whole overshadowing investment Toyota now has in new hybrid-electric, full electric BEV and hydrogen and autonomous vehicles in light of even more increasing regulation that will make pure gas performance cars very difficult to keep investing in.

So my other guess is that Toyota (and possibly Lexus) might feel that since Mazda leapfrogged what would have taken them longer to design (as with the Supra) and since Mazda is willing to share... then that makes the prospect of shortening the development-to-release timeline for any additional specialty niche spec RWD I-6 models that much easier and faster to be able to introduce.

Again.... IF the I-6+platform Toyota-Mazda collaboration tie up holds true.

At the end of the day though another such tie-up represents the same thing: a race against time+regulations and against high costs to develop all but a couple of the Toyota enthusiast models in-house.

I guess Nissan is able to do the next Z on their own because the 3.0 V6 twin turbo engine is already a production design and the platform... that will probably be a modified update of whatever the smallest Infiniti RWD Q50 architecture currently is. And their GTR... well... that's a very expensive car on a whole other level selling extremely low volume for bragging rights amidst a lineup of otherwise undesirable rental car like products (thanks Carlos Ghosn!)

To anyone reading this, please understand that my tone is not negative or dogging on Toyota at any point. I see the many factors for why they aren't doing things 100% on their own now as much larger in scale and multi-faceted complexity than what can be taken from the story of just one or two niche model development stories.

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