The 2024 Toyota Yaris GR Sport Hybrid Is Everything A Small Car Should Be

Toyota doesn’t sell the Yaris hatchback here in America anymore, instead offering the Corolla as its smallest model that you can buy stateside, which is a shame for small car fans like me. But with the 2024 European market Yaris now offering more power, an updated interior and a GR Sport trim that makes it surprisingly fun to drive, are we missing out more than ever?

Full disclosure: Toyota invited me down to its press garage in Hampshire to spend the day driving the 2024 Yaris. It set me up with two cars to drive with full tanks of gas, offered me lunch and dropped me back at the station to head home to London after it was all over. Thanks Toyota.

For the 2024 model, Toyota has given one of its smallest global cars a refresh on the exterior, an updated engine and a bunch of new tech to make driving the Yaris as easy as pie. To put all this newness through its paces, I’m spending the day in the GR Sport trim, which brings a whiff of the GR Yaris’ high-performance knowhow to the masses. The GR Sport model sits near the top of the Yaris tree with an on-the-road price of £28,805 (about $36,600), which is just £125 ($160) less than the top-tier Premiere Edition that Toyota says will only be offered for a limited time.

For about the price of a Subaru Forester in the U.S., Toyota will sell the Brits a five-seat hatch that’s powered by a 1.5-liter inline-3 engine with a hybrid system that produces 127 horsepower, up from 112 hp in the outgoing Yaris. The hybrid power comes from a 62-kW motor that is paired with a 740 wH battery. Torque has also increased in the new car, with Toyota claiming the new hybrid motor produces 185 Nm. A continuously variable transmission (CVT) is on hand to transfer that torque to the front wheels.

The hybrid motor under the hood makes the Yaris GR Sport surprisingly fun to drive. It’s snappy when I want to accelerate out of the corners and has plenty of power to manage the hills around Surrey. Toyota says the new car has enough under the hood to get from zero to 60 mph in 9.2 seconds and on to a top speed of 109 mph. That explains why the new Yaris is more than comfortable cruising at UK highway speeds, which are 70 mph, and can pass slow-moving traffic without breaking a sweat. When it’s time to ease off the power, the Yaris GR Sport has a set of disc brakes at each corner.

While the CVT isn’t as engaging as the manual Yaris I first learned to drive in, it is a damn sight smoother at selecting a gear than me or the car was back then, which will probably surprise nobody. Toyota says the new transmission has been tweaked to make it quieter and smoother, and I’m inclined to agree. There’s very little noise out of the CVT as I drive through the peaceful countryside, and it handles changing speeds on twisty, turny, up-and-down roads well.

When I’m not speeding around country lanes, the GR Sport is a pleasantly refined daily driver. It’s got great visibility all around for navigating England’s “Olde Worlde” towns, and the crisp backup camera makes parking and reversing a breeze. To remind you that this is a sensible city car rather than an all-out hot hatch, the fuel economy is also top notch, with Toyota rating it at more than 54 miles per gallon (on the UK cycle) and the car I’m testing averaging just over 47 mpg despite my… enthusiastic driving, let’s call it.

That increased efficiency is thanks to the new hybrid powertrain that features a more powerful 62kW motor, which is up on the 59 kW found in last year’s model. While the battery has the same specs as the old car, Toyota says it’s a new unit that offers double the recharge capacity and 50% more output compared with last year’s Yaris. Because of this, Toyota says the new car can operate in EV mode for “around 80 percent” of urban journeys, and can even hit speeds of up to 80 mph when you head out of town.