Toyota South Africa is yet to confirm it, but it’s possible that the new units of the GR Yaris have landed in the country.
This is due to various reasons, most notably the removal of the base derivative, new standard features, and official sales figures.
Homologation special
The GR Yaris launched in 2021 as a road-going rally car in a limited run of 25,000 units for the entire world, South Africa getting 190 of those each one accompanied by a corresponding-numbered keyring.
The hot hatch was built for rally and homologated for road use, thereby allowing Toyota to compete in the World Rally Championship (WRC) whose revised rules for 2021 stated that a manufacturer may only compete in the “Rally1” category if they have produced at least 25,000 units of the passenger vehicle that its rally cars are based on.
News quickly broke that the local allocation of the special hatchback was sold out and “pre-owned” models with low mileage started to appear on used-car platforms selling for substantial premiums.
At the time, enthusiasts were told that this was it and the GR Yaris would forever remain a limited-edition model capped at 25,000 units. However, the championship in which the hatch was supposed to make its debut was canceled and Toyota suddenly did not have to produce a minimum number of vehicles anymore.
A few months later rumours started surfacing that the factory was putting out more units than it initially led on, and Toyota’s domestic subsidiary confirmed to TopAuto in August that while there are more high-performance Yaris models being produced, none of them have yet been allocated to South Africa.
Fast forward to July 2022, and we believe South Africa may have gotten its next allocation.
The hot hatch first reached our shores in June 2021, just over a year ago, with the last batch landing in October, Toyota confirmed.
From October 2021 until January 2022, 26 sales of the GR Yaris were reported to Naamsa, presumably as the final units were delivered to their owners.
In February and March no sales were reported, and in April only one model was sold.
April was also around the same time Toyota delisted the standard GR Yaris from its website and updated the brochures and pricing to only reflect the Yaris Rally.
May 2022 came around and the “all-new GR Yaris Rally” was now being advertised with rear parking sensors “as standard”, whereas this feature wasn’t even available on the cars from last year, according to the brochures.
The below comparison shows the features between the two periods, with two notable differences being the absence of the standard model and the addition of rear park distance control sensors in the 2022 brochure. (Click to enlarge)
Although no sales were reported for the GR Yaris in May 2022, in June there were 15 models recorded as sold in Naamsa’s sales statistics, marking one of the best monthly performances for the hatchback since it was released.
Whether these Toyotas were bought by dealerships or private buyers is not known, but the sales come seven months after the “final units” landed in the country, making it rather unlikely that these ones are still being delivered to their buyers, and more likely that a new shipment has arrived.
It would make sense for Toyota to produce as many high-performance Yaris cars as possible, as, reported Car Throttle, the GR model was extremely expensive to develop and takes about 10 times longer than the standard one to assemble.
Following “unprecedented” global demand for the first special edition, Toyota aims to capitalise on the GR brand by launching a host of additional performance-focused models including a GR Corolla and GR Hilux, while simultaneously making back the substantial resources it used during the development of the Yaris by producing more of them.
Therefore, it’s a reasonable assumption that Toyota has quietly started, or will start selling its GR Yaris in the country again but has kept it under wraps – maybe to stop waitlists from growing too long.
If you’ve had your eye on one but weren’t all too keen on paying excessive “pre-owned” prices, it might just be worth taking a stroll to your closest dealership to find out whether the new GR Yaris has, in fact, arrived.
TopAuto contacted the company for comment on the local availability of the GR Yaris but it did not respond by time of publication.
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