When Toyota Gazoo Racing unveiled the GR Yaris, it delivered something increasingly rare in the modern performance car landscape, a road car conceived with genuine competition at its heart.

Developed with knowledge gained from the World Rally Championship, the GR Yaris features a dedicated platform, a turbocharged 1.6-litre three-cylinder engine, a six-speed manual gearbox and the GR-Four all-wheel-drive system, combining formidable traction with a wonderfully engaging driving experience.

Its combination of compact dimensions, muscular performance and rally-bred engineering quickly established a devoted following, earning the car an enviable reputation among enthusiasts and an almost immediate cult status.

As Top Gear put it, the GR Yaris was ‘hands down the best Toyota we've ever driven’.

In an era increasingly dominated by electrification and automatic transmissions, its focused, analogue character and motorsport-derived engineering have made it one of the defining performance ca...