Toyota GR Yaris engines & performance

Toyota has taken that opportunity to raise power and torque, too, to 276bhp (from 256bhp) and 288lb ft (from 266lb ft), and offer an eight-speed automatic gearbox as an option.

Our test car was an automatic, just 20kg heavier than the manual, and in standard specification rather than one of the even higher-priced special editions (I’ll come to that).

Left in its regular automatic mode the gearbox keeps revs modest, and the engine grumbles in slightly gravelly fashion, changing up early.

It feels curiously calm if you know the infectious old model, although still not overtly refined. The previous GR’s enthusiasm, from memory present all the time, takes knocking the gear selector across into manual mode to unlock this time around. A few revs wind on, you choose the ratio yourself via flappy paddles, and from that point on the quick-shifting, slightly boosty Yaris feels much more like the GR we know and love.