2024 Toyota GR Yaris Auto Goes Head To Head With New And Old Manual Versions

A drag race is the perfect way to show the subtle differences between these pocket rocket three-cylinder cars

It’s exceptionally rare for automakers to introduce cars that not only provide relatively low cost with high performance but are also essentially hand-built, resembling homologated race specials rather than just another trim level of a mass-produced model. However, that’s precisely what the Toyota GR Yaris offers.

Now, the Japanese automaker is bringing out an updated version of their sub-compact GR model and introducing a never-before-available automatic gearbox. In this video, all three versions go up against one another in a good ol fashioned drag race.

The original GR Yaris isn’t that old and made waves initially for its small chuckable size and great powertrain featuring 268 hp (200 kW) and 273 lb-ft (370 Nm) of torque. Now, the new version makes 300 hp (224 kW) and 296 lb-ft (400 Nm) of torque and gets a slew of other updates. In the video below many of the finer details get broken down before the racing begins.

Read: 2024 Toyota GR Yaris Adds 8-Speed Auto, More Power And Rally-Inspired Cabin

Of course, it’s the racing that we care most about and it’s also where these cars really separate themselves. The new GR Yaris with the automatic has a distinct advantage off the line. Without any fear of bogging down, it launches hard and initially leaves both the other Toyotas, a pre-facelift manual GR Yaris and a new GR Yaris with a stick-shift, in the dust. It sails to a win in the first race by about three car lengths.

The trio lines up again, but this time, the new manually-equipped GR Yaris gets a much better launch and steps out to a lead. Again though, the potential pitfalls of a manual versus an automatic pop-up as a missed shift means that the auto takes the win again. Either way one slices it, the old GR Yaris comes in quite a bit later than the new ones.

That’s not the whole story though because comparing them one at a time provides a bit of insight too. The old GR Yaris snagged a 0-60 mph time of 6 seconds flat. It then finished the quarter-mile in 14.12 seconds. The new car with a manual shows improvements in both metrics. In fact, it was nearly a second faster from 0-60 scoring a time of 5.06. Then, it went on to do the quarter-mile in just 13.67.

Finally, the automatic benefits from a launch mode and far less drama. It actually ended up doing 0-60 mph in 5.1 seconds, barely slower than the manual. The car made up the time over the rest of the run though and finished with an overall quarter-mile time of 13.61 seconds. That’s quite the feat for a three-cylinder production car. 

Image Credit: Carwow