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@will300 just read your review. I've done about twice the miles you have, though for some reason everyone and their dog seemed to be on the roads today. I'm going to wait a bit to do a review as I want to gather my thoughts more fully. I totally agree about the engine. It is impressive in that it feels a lot quicker than you expect it to be. So much so that when I overtook some duffer in second gear, I was surprised at the manner in which it gathered pace. I have not really been north of 5500rpm, but that engine loves to rev. I actually like the sound you get when inside the car, whether synthetic or otherwise. It has a very business like tone and you can hear the turbo venting to atmosphere when you attune to it. When I pulled out of RRG the steering felt very light, but it weighted up nicely at speed. I agree it doesn't seem to have the feel of the GT86, though mine is razor sharp with the poly bushes on it. I feel it's very much good enough though. I too found the seating position very high after getting out of the GT86, though I think that the GT is so low means it's a bit all relative. But like you I soon grew accustomed to it and then you don't notice it. The driving position is comfortable enough with the seats offering a similar level of support to the GT. I also found heel and toeing easy enough but you have to be on the brakes. I actually liked the brake feel, though this may be optimised more with a different pad. I have purposefully not been that hard on the brakes yet. My car has 73 miles on the clock! I have tried the different modes and you can feel it if you switch between them. I have not yet pushed hard, but driving down a greasy and wet B-road with mud on it, the car dealt with the conditions with absolute aplomb. The damping I agree feels really good. Ride is good enough and it is more refined than the GT/BRZ. Overall (maybe as I've bought one) I'd rate it higher than Will, but I probably got more opportunity to push it a bit harder on some twisty B-roads. I must say as soon as I dispatched the duffer I got into some S-Bends and wow the car quickly came alive. A glance at the speedo told me I was well north of the national speed limit. I think this car is very well sorted and the harder you work it, the better it gets. That's what I think it is going to be like. 1 minute of starting to really get it to flow down a deserted wet and sometimes muddy B road, made me think that not much would be able to keep up with it. It really does inspire confidence. I don't think the GT86 would have handled those kind of conditions with such aplomb. I know already I will have to push a fair bit harder to find its limits. Trackday booked at Blyton for 31st January.

@KobayashiMaru good review. It's got a 50L tank btw, same as a GT86. it think it is a bit more thirsty than the GT though, but more power requires more fuel. I'm averaging about 21.5mpg But once I have done a 1000 miles, I'll be sitting on the motorway at 60 with the radar cruise on lane trace assist and I'm sure I'll get some back. It is hugely competent isn't it? I've done a 100 mile drive down the A49 to Whitchurch and back at 7am this morning. I was surprised at how I quickly became so confident in the car. Those 4S tyres really are amazing, but the tautness of the chassis really helps and the damping is very good. I ran in track mode first thing when it was still raining and did notice the front diff locking and a bit of understeer as I exited a roundabout. I then went to Sport mode and that sorted that issue. I got the car into a lovely flow over some crests and nice fast bends down the A49 and I must admit, I was really starting to flow. What I am loving is that the harder you push the car, the more it delivers. That I was grinning from ear to ear, told me all I wanted to know. I really doubt anything would stay with one of these down a sodden B road in darkest December.

Test drove one yesterday unaccompanied for about an hour. It's the demo so was encouraged to give it a good go. Grip great even with traction control off and as Lauren says it's absolute. It's been setup to be as grippy as possible and feels quite a serious car which is cool. Not as lairy as Evo's and Subaru's of old unless you really provoke it. But look at how modern WRC cars go through a stage and it makes sense why. Went through sections I'd be feathering the throttle in other cars, this was flat and quite a bit faster. Track Mode is the mode I enjoyed most. Sport I felt I'd want more space to see it slide about but it's the demo so wasn't going to be silly. Normal just feels like a FWD hatch with an LSD that rotates a bit quicker. The Michelin PS4S tyres are as amazing as the press say. I run the standard PS4 tyres on other cars and recently had some new ones and thought they must've revised the compound as it was better again. The PS4S though is like witchcraft. Once they were warm, even in the wet with traction off there was barely a hint of wheel spin. Brakes were awesome, Pedals for heel and toe could be better but easy enough and easier when you're really on the brakes. Does mean you can probably drive in boots easily. Having big feet, some cars I have to wear smaller shoes. It has rev matching but is too slow. It loves full throttle corner exits & higher speed bends. Plant it and go. In-gear it's pretty quick. Turbo boosts well, drops off at higher speeds but it's a 1.6 so to be expected but it's quick where it matters which is a big plus for me. Does like a drink though. When I gave it back it was on 15mpg and I expected it to be low. But the lowest I saw was 9mpg. With only a 36L tank, if you drove like that all the time that's barely 100 miles to a tank. Still has to run in though and don't know if it was on super unleaded. Still seemed pretty good for a new engine. I'd seen Litchfield and others from a brand new engine are seeing higher figures than it's supposed to which is good. The tuners are going to love it though. The intake could be a lot bigger and I'm not surprised they've seen 300bhp+ from it already. I only had it an hour but it's confidence inspiring from the off, a feeling I also got from the Type-R. Once I adjusted to the 4WD and got used to the power moving about it was great and I felt pretty comfortable with it and think it would be quite satisfying to find all it could do, which is what I'm looking for next. Steering feel isn't as sharp as a Type-R or a tweaked GT86 but it's OK. Lot better than most cars. It's expectedly small in the back, may get a bike in with the wheel off but doesn't feel that small to drive and the headunit screen I didn't noticed once I was actually driving. Dealer said most are getting it for £495 down and £495/mth for 4yrs. It's a chunk of money but when Honda and others offer nothing like those figures it's very tempting. For me it may have to be a 2nd car, but I also have the bike for fun so would take some man maths to justify. I don't do much mileage these days so there's that. It's also a 9mth waiting list.

Glad you like your new car Lauren [emoji108]

Picked mine up today. Still grinning from ear to ear. I was genuinely shocked at how quick it feels and I haven't been near the redline yet, though got closer than I intended purely because it revved way quicker than I expected. The brakes have a great feel to them. heel and toeing is fine but you need to be on the brakes a bit, so not quite as easy as the GT86. Traction is pretty much absolute, but I haven't pushed it as my first drive was down a wet and fairly muddy B-road, but it is very confidence inspiring. I can't wait to get to know it better. Richard kindly organised for Mark, Jane and Alec to be there to greet me when I arrived. It was lovely to see them and great to have a chat and have a good look at the car.

Cheers guys. I may see you out and about Martin, I'm only just up the road. Good to know the throttle can be cured ok - can the factory ECU be reprogrammed or is it a case of going for something standalone and a full mapping session? I've read about how there's more throttle angle in the first half of the pedal travel, but for me the more annoying part is the delay to close the throttle when I come off the pedal. At the end of the day you can't beat a cable!

Toyota GR Yaris - 25 Minute Test Drive Review Hello Everyone, Here is my quick review of the GR Yaris, based on a 25minute test drive. Which was conducted on the outskirts of Birmingham, so mostly consisted of city roads and dual carriageway, with lots of pot holes. Because of this I was unable to push the car handling and cornering ability. For reference the weather was dry but the roads were wet from lots of rain the night before. Short Version: The car is good and well rounded. It has excellent power delivery from the 3 cylinder engine. Lacking exhaust sound but you can make turbo noises, exhaust would be first mod. Stiff but compliant suspension, not crashy. Comfortable but seat is too high and letter box effect in the center of the windscreen. Fairly priced considering the technology. Overall: 7/10 Long Version: Exterior My initial thoughts on seeing the Yaris in the showroom are, it's small, looks well built, the front end is very aggressive with the large grill and cooling vent, the side has massive wide arches which really add to the character of the car. The most disappointing part of the car is definitely the rear end as it's lacking any kind of style. The wheels are made by BBS Japan and forged, they actually have the specification markings on the inner bead, as in it literally says 18x8.5 +45 (might not be exactly this), BBS Japan, Made in Japan, etc. A nice touch for those who like this kind of detail or looking for the info on the wheel specs. The Brakes are massive and fill the 18" wheels nicely, they are a two piece design with a bolted hat and rotor, so should make getting replacements relatively in-expensive. The showroom car was in solid white, this is a nice and clean colour and showed the cars details very well. I compared it to a Pearl White regular Yaris that was next to it, the Pearl was nice but I don't think it'd work on the GR. The test car was a Scarlet Flare red GR Yaris with Circuit Pack. I didn't find the colour that exciting when initally looking at it, however I passed the car on the way home whilst it was on another test drive and it did looks good on the road. I'm not sure what my preferred colour choice would be based on the options available. Owning a WR Blue BRZ my ideal colour would be blue again if it was available. Interior The interior has a modern feel and is well put together and looks very nice, there are some cheap plastics and the dash cluster is very plain, think of it like a 90's STi cluster. It really looks odd compared to the rest of the dash, as that has a nice modern look. I definitely think a digital dash would have been better, if a regular Yaris can have this why can't the GR? At-least it should be an option. However upon driving the main central digital display was nice and clear, easy to read and understand. It's display output can be adjusted by using the controls on the left side of the steering wheel, you can see the current speed, mpg, turbo pressure, tyre pressure, power output to each wheel and adjust the various systems of the car, i.e. the lane assist or emergency braking. For the test drive I left the display on current speed. The steering wheel also had controls for the radar cruise control, audio and phone system. The seats were very nice and comfortable, but as reported by a number of people they sit very high, apparently there is up-to 60mm of hight adjustment, but even on the lowest setting this was too high for me. Also the main infotainment screen and rear view mirror take up a lot of wind screen space, giving a letter box feel to the center of the windscreen. If the seat was an 1" lower this wouldn't be an issue for myself. However before my test drive I was talking with another customer who was also interested in the GR, he was probably over 6 foot, we discussed this issue and I can definitely see it being more of a problem for him and the taller drivers. After about 5 minutes in the car the seating position felt natural and I was used to the letter box effect and could happily accept this compromise. I didn't try the back seat space, but I had a quite look in the boot and it's tiny so bare this in mind if you need some storage space. Test drive: Power Delivery - As I'm sure most of you are aware the GR Yaris has a 260hp, 3 cylinder, 1.6L engine, and it's powerful more than I expected from a 3 cylinder. My only previous experience of a 3 cylinder engine is a 1.0L in a VW Up, the Yaris is nothing like that. The delivery is nice and smooth with a good amount of torque. There is little to no turbo lag and it's happy to be revved out. Although peak power is in the middle of the rev range. I might have given the clutch a hard time on the first pull major pull away, upon joining a dual carriageway from a roundabout as I wasn't expecting it to pull as well as it did. The power makes it very easy to reach the speed limit and go beyond it. As for the clutch other than me getting used to it (mainly getting used to driving a car that actually has some power), the pedal was good and firm and didn't require a lot of effort to press. Suspension - The car as mentioned previous had the circuit pack fitted, this has stiffer suspension than the standard/convenience pack cars. You could definitely tell it was stiff, but it wasn't bone jarring / teeth rattling like some other cars (Fiesta ST). It is well damped which is what makes a massive difference when it comes to suspension, so much so I'd say it has better dampers than the Tein Flex A's on my BRZ, as it was very compliant on the rutted roads, with no torque steer when putting the power down. However I'd probably look at changing the suspension to a set of coilovers fairly quickly after purchase of the car, as I'd like a bit more refinement from them, perhaps the standard suspension would be more akin to my ideal setup. Although with coilovers the balance could be fine tuned. Chassis - The chassis felt solid and didn't have any sort of body flex, I could tell during the limited corning that the body was nice and flat with little roll. As for the steering, it was perfectly acceptable and you could tell which directions the wheels were pointing, ideally I'd like to see how the steering behaved when on track to get a better feel for it. However it does lack feedback compared to the 86/BRZ, to be fair to the Yaris though I've not tested another car with the same steering feedback as the 86/BRZ, even my Mazda MX5 MK1 didn't feel as precise. Brakes / Wheels & Tyres - The circuit pack cars are fitted with Michelin Pilot Sport 4S tyres as standard. On the wet roads the car had plenty of grip and traction and I never once thought I could use more grip, unfortunately I didn't really get chance to try changing the AWD drive modes to see if this would have made any difference to the traction levels. It would be interesting to see how the car reacts on the PS4S in proper wintry conditions. The brakes as standard are massive, even so they work amazing from cold without issue. However like the steering, the feedback from the brake pedal wasn't as exact as my modified BRZ's, it does have a nice consistent feel and not over servoed like a VW's. Noise - The car was quiet inside, there is definitely less road noise than compared with my own BRZ which has added sound deadening. However the worst part of the car is the exhaust sound or lack of sound, I put the windows down for the last 5 minutes of the drive and you could barely hear the car even when static revving it. This is highly disappointing and whilst a 3 cylinder isn't exactly a screaming V8 I would have expected some noise, after all it is based on a rally car. I'd definitely recommend ordering an exhaust system to go on the car immediately. I guess this is why the car has the artificial engine sound through the speakers. The only positive from the quiet exhaust is that you can hear the turbo, which is fun when flooring it and lifting off then hearing the turbo vent to atmosphere. Final Thoughts: Overall it's a good car and fairly priced when you consider all the performance technology it features, with the 0% finance currently available it makes the car a very tempting proposition. However it's not as involving as the 86/BRZ and lacks that extra feel of precision. It's therefore not a car I'd look at replacing my BRZ with. I am tempted to order one as a second car due to it's features and uniqueness which I hope will mean it holds value quite well. If I was to score it out of 10, I'd probably say a 7 is fair based on my 25minute test drive. I'm looking forward to reading @Lauren's inital review to see if any of my thoughts match her's. Thanks for reading. Will p.s. If your thinking of ordering, the current expected delivery date is June 2021.

Yes it is configurable, mine (an 86) only the drivers door unlocked with the smart entry. I changed it to both doors with this method (credit to codename47 as it was from his post): Use the drivers door handle to open the door Leave the door open and hold the lock and unlock buttons on the fob for 5 seconds You'll hear a couple of beeps Voila - your drives handle now opens both doors. This can be repeated to reverse if wanted!