Toyota GR Yaris DAT delivers

ZWARTKOPS: HOT HATCH PROVES IT'S NO GIMMICK

- Jaco van der Merwe

The Citizen Motoring has had a love affair with the Toyota GR Yaris ever since the pocket rocket was introduced locally in 2021.

We were one of the first publications to perform a high-performance road test on the feisty hatch, road test editor Mark Jones raced the manual version in the inaugural GR Cup season in 2022 and online reporter Charl Bosch the DAT (direct automatic transmission) in this year's Media Challenge.

When Toyota took the wraps off the 2025 GR Yaris DAT at Zwartkops Raceway last month, I simply had to sample it as The Citizen Motoring's only scribe who hasn't raced the car yet. I did have the privilege to experience the GR Corolla in last year's GR Cup, but its Yaris sibling presents a very tempting alternative.

The model we got to sample during the media launch was the updated version that differs slightly from the DAT that was introduced earlier in the year and used in the GR Cup. It now features the Toyota Safety Sense 3 suite which wasn't part of the spec list before.