GR Corolla vs GR Yaris w/ Civic Type R, Golf R, Lancia Delta Integrale — Jason Cammisa on the ICONS

So you tuned in to find out which one is better, the GR Corolla or the GR Yaris. But first, can I ask a question? How did we get here? And I'm not talking about what our parents did in the backseat of a Toyota to put us on this planet. But now, Toyotas are sexy. Even the Prius got hot. Somehow, the most fun closed sports car in the world has a Toyota badge on it. And then there's that thing, which is possibly the most punch-above-its-weight sports car ever made. Together, these two are the most important enthusiast hatchbacks in what, 30 years? How in the name of all things holy and right did that happen? This is a story about a pair of hot Toyota hatchbacks and a Lancia. But we'd be remiss if we didn't first tip our hats in the direction of another company, Volkswagen, for both inventing the hot hatch and then keeping the flame alive for eight successive generations of GTI. That is a serious commitment. And this is a serious story. The hot hatchback, known colloquially as the hot hatch, is a practical, affordable, economical box that can keep up with sports cars. They're wonderful, and we adore them. But there exists a different type of hatch, one that lives one rung up on the coolness ladder. I'll call that a super hatch. And unlike a mere hot hatch, the super hatch doesn't exist for quick commuting. It exists for racing. Rally racing. This is the most extreme, deranged, demented, idiotic, irresponsible, and psychotic sanctioned motorsport of them all. The super hatch isn't just a quicker version of a people's car like the GTI is. The super hatch is engineered and sold to the public solely to be eligible to participate in the WRC. And the super hatch was invented by the Lancia Delta Integrale. The Delta didn't just do well in rallying. No, no. The Integrale won the world rally championship six times in a row. And that is something no other car has ever done before or since. Hot hatches of the time used little screaming engines to make 100 horsepower, but the Integrale made twice that. Hatches were all front wheel drive, but the Integrale drove all four with rear biased all wheel drive. And man, did that make all the difference in the world. Hot hatches were all tall and narrow, but the Integrale was flared out to be six inches wider than a regular Delta. Also, they could just fit more tire. With four wheel disc brakes, four wheel independent suspension, and that rear biased all wheel drive system, not to mention the double overhead cam, 16 valve turbocharged, and integral Aurelio Lampredi two liter. This thing just didn't happen to win 46 WRC races. It wasn't just casually compared to the Porsche 959. No, it was widely considered to be one of the, if not the fastest over the road car in the world. If you don't know much about this legend, it's because you played soccer as a kid and didn't call it football. We never got the Lancia Delta Integrale in the US. In fact, with the exception of a fragile and not particularly successful little Mazda, we've never gotten a single homologation rally hatchback ever. And in 2020, when we were all locked away from our friends and family, scared to death, learning what shelter in place meant, Toyota gave the world a glimmer of hope. Toyota dropped the most exciting enthusiast car of the year and the most significant rally homologation hatchback in decades. It was the GR Yaris. A 257 horsepower turbocharged three cylinder, six speed manual, limited slip differential, two door, all wheel drive, bulging bulldog of hope. The GR Yaris was conceived from the ground up to compete in the World Rally Championship as the Yaris WRC, except of course the year was 2020 and we all know what that means. Thanks to COVID, Toyota had to close up shop and abandon the entire rally project. Toyota killed off the WRC car, but said screw it and decided to make the street car anyway, because this is so much more than just a homologation car. This was Toyota's chance to prove to the world that it really did want to come back from lockdown one of the cool kids. The differences between the GR and a regular Yaris might not be obvious at first, but they're outrageous and the sort of thing that manufacturers just won't spend money on because it doesn't return a profit. For example, all Yaris's are five doors except the GR is a three door. It's forged carbon roof tapers by 3.75 inches by the time it gets to the back and that's solely so it can send more air to the big WRC spoiler. The hood, the doors and the tailgate are all aluminum. This weighs nothing. Its structure gets 259 additional welds and 48 additional feet of structural adhesive. Like the big Delta, it's six inches wider than the car it's based on for additional track width. And to that end, the GR Yaris uses the Corolla's wider, fully independent rear suspension in place of the Yaris's torsion beam. And of course, it uses Toyota's first all-wheel drive system in more than two decades, hooked up to the most powerful three-cylinder engine the world has ever seen. This is a dream come true. And guess what? Right away, Toyota said it wasn't coming to the US. Another COVID year slap in the face. And the reason was financial. If the Yaris was sold in America, the GR could be homologated for sale as a different version of the Yaris. And it would cost measly tens of millions of dollars to do that. But because the Yaris isn't sold here in any form, getting the GR Yaris through certification in the US would have cost Toyota hundreds of millions or even billions of dollars. And so there was absolutely no way Toyota could afford to bring the GR Yaris here. But in 2020, Toyota heard our cries, which was a small miracle given how loud all the coughing was. It took the GR Yaris's three-cylinder and bumped it up to 300 horsepower. Another record. And then it yanked the Yaris's transmission, all-wheel drive system, suspension, and brakes, and swapped them all into a flared-out, carbon-roofed version of a car that was already on sale in America. The Corolla Hatch. And the first thing that we all want to know is... Negative. I'm fine, Kay. What about you, sniffle-lophagus? Oh, really? Yeah. Oh, hold on. Wait a second. Kay. Keys. Car keys. Wait. Got it. Negative. Okay. So the second thing that we all want to know is, is the bigger, heavier Corolla as good as the smaller, lighter... Yaris. I'm okay. I hope so. I'm fine. There we go. Oh, my God. We're dead even. I'm pulling a little bit until I shift. Let's get a chicken out first. Oh, it's friendly-popsed. They are dead. I love how short these gears are. Can't even hit 60 in second. Look, 75 is max in third. You're just constantly shifting. This little three-cylinder sounds so violent. Pulling all the way to seven grand. And the brake bite... ...is magnificent. The Yaris is definitely outgripped by that Marizo Corolla GR. It's got cup twos. And this just has a street touch. Jason's absolutely losing me. Look at him drive away. This car is really stuck. It is not tail happy. There's so much hype about this all-wheel drive system being able to put so much power to the back that it can get the car to rotate. But nope. What it seems to do is just reduce the levels of understeer under power. It never makes it oversteer under power. And that's what I really want. And I think a lot of enthusiasts do, too. There we go. Rotate on the way in. Randy's gonna be making fun of me now. Calm down, Camisa. You don't have to rip the steering wheel off to turn in. Jeez. But actually, you do. Because if you fling the Corolla, or the Yaris for that matter, into a corner like you're trying to die, it rotates beautifully. What Randy and I are both saying is, it all ends when you get back on the gas. All these cup twos just put it down. Oh my god, there's so much grip. Look, if you're trying to be clean, this thing is so fast. Finding a peer for this thing would be difficult. But not impossible. The Honda Civic Type R is the front-wheel drive performance benchmark. It embodies everything we love about a hot hatch. It's fast. It's practical. And a pleasure to row through the gears. It's also huge. Huge? Jason, the Civic is only 38 pounds heavier than the Corolla. I've seen you eat more pizza. A, yes. B, that was very good pizza. C, 38 pounds more than the all-wheel drive GR Corolla. It has to put 315 horsepower to the ground. Not to mention 310 pound-feet of torque all through the front wheels. This thing has absolutely no chance of putting any of its power down in first... You okay? First or second gears. I'll use third. Good idea. Really, are you okay though? There's only one thing that cures me. What's that? Speed. Oh, all right. We'll go set a lap time in that, and that, and I'm just gonna walk away. Great, how long have I got? 20 seconds. Why so long? Typhoid Randy went out and set a lap in every car we had on site. Lancia first. The very not-stock Deltona set a lap time of 1 minute 27.09, which is a time that the 30-year-newer Yaris couldn't beat. Unlike the Lancia, this is actually stock. And it's also the base model GR Yaris, which means it comes with open differentials and performance tires that are not particularly performance-y. Its time? A second and a quarter behind the Italian legend. The GR Corolla didn't have that problem. Without being any faster in a straight line than the Yaris, its limited slip differentials and no slip-at-all Cup 2 tires helped it absolutely slaughter its little brother, beating it by 5.4 seconds, making this super hatch the fastest hatchback we've ever seen around the streets of Willow. Until Randy hopped into the Civic. The Civic Type R is an excellent front drive. Maybe the best ever. But man, is it frustrating coming out of a slow corner. Wheel spin. Suspension is really well damped. Excellent control. But there's not a lot of choice in the car's attitude. It's really dealing with varying degrees of understeer all the time. It might be even less attitude-adjustable than the all-wheel drive Toyotas, but it's faster. The Honda beat even the Marizo by half a second, taking the crown of the fastest hatchback ever, becoming the fastest front-wheel drive car we've ever tested, and putting it in the same league as a Ferrari 458 Italia. And then there was the Golf R. It's not a wild ride, but it's quick and refined. Well balanced. Brakes, handling, power. In all ways, it's better than any Golf I can remember. In all ways of performance, that is. Better than previous Golfs, but not even close to the Corolla and Civic. Don't you dare scoff though, because look at where this Volkswagen slots in. With just 315 horsepower, it beats the 400 horsepower Nissan Z. The Golf might not be the fastest around the track, but that's due almost entirely to its less aggressive tires. It's brilliant. And it makes good on the unfulfilled, sideways promise of the GR4's all-wheel drive system. Like all front-drive based all-wheel drive systems, the Golf R's can't decouple the front axles from the engine. And like Toyota's GR4 system, it can't overdrive the rear wheels. So at most, it can send only 50% of the engine's torque to the back wheels. But it can send all of that torque to just one side. And since the Golf R makes so much torque, it can easily overwhelm the outside rear tire, giving us that sideways love that we love so much. This car can certainly maximize the traction available at all four corners. It just can't overwhelm the rears. Both these cars can get sideways on the way into a corner, sure. But transition back to power, and the Golf will keep the slide going. The Corolla can't. Power oversteer wouldn't really make this car faster, but it sure would make me smile more. Then again, it's not all about speed, because life isn't about setting lap times on a dry racetrack. Some of life's best moments are life's wettest moments. Like a hot tub. Or like dancing in the rain. Or a wet track. In low-grip conditions, the GR4 system can send enough power to the back for drifts and slides. So long as you trail brake the car to get it sideways, and then add power. If you think about it, this kind of behavior makes perfect sense, because this is a rally car all-wheel drive system. On dry pavement, it just needs to put the power down. On loose gravel, well, you get it sideways on the way in, and then power out a little bit sideways. It's really fast. And if you need help turning, well, GR4 disables power to the rear wheels when you pull the e-brake. And then it calls 911. I'm on a racetrack. Okay, so it turns out that when Subaru makes a GR86, everything's fine. When BMW makes a GR Supra, everything is fine. And when Toyota makes a GR Corolla, and its drivers drive like a GR driver, well, it calls the police. Again. Toyota gotta be Toyota. Look, this isn't a comparison test, and the Yaris does have the WRC homologation gold card. But I gotta say something. The Corolla's got a better shifter, a nicer interior, it's just as quick in a straight line, and it's way faster around a track. The Corolla does a bunch of things better, but nothing worse. It's kind of the better car. Plus, I'd like for you to name another four-door car that only has two seats. This is a model of practicality. It's basically a miniature cargo van. It's also proof that Toyota's lost its goddamn mind, and you and I benefit from that insanity. By the way, of course, the Corolla is available with a backseat. And this is a GR Corolla Circuit Edition. So it has a backseat. And it has shiny gray paint. And unfortunately, this one has a clutch so fried that we couldn't even get to the racetrack to get you a lap time. But I've driven one of these things, and they're almost as good as the Marizo. I gotta say, though, of all three cars, it's the Marizo that's where it's at. Our very limited edition Marizo earns its very expensive price tag by including not just extra external bracing, like those where the backseat would have been, but 349 additional chassis welds versus the base Corolla. More than it took to turn a regular Yaris into the GR Yaris. Plus forged wheels, cup two tires, and that outrageously short gearing. But the most important thing about the Marizo is where its name came from. Marizo is the fake name used by Toyota CEO Akio Toyota when he went racing, so that nobody would actually know it was him. Kind of like how I use the name Discount Sandler, so nobody knows I'm actually nobody. For the last decade, Mr. Toyota has promised a disbelieving world that he wouldn't rest until people stopped describing Toyota cars as boring. His first attempt? Well, it's fun, but that is a lopsided joint development with Subaru. The second attempt is a monster, but that is a BMW with a Toyota badge on it. That's not exactly the best way for the world's largest car manufacturer to prove it's sporting metal by rebadging other people's cars. Then 2020 happened, and just as you would have never believed you'd be disinfecting your groceries, the GR Yaris dropped. 100% Toyota, 100% legend. And now we have the GR Corolla. 100% legend. Instantly. And if you think Marizo-san was joking, just look at the new Prius. It is fire, unlike the previous four generations, which we all just wanted light on fire. Mr. Toyota kept his promise. Like the GR 86, the Supra, and I can't believe I'm saying this, the Prius, Toyotas are suddenly anything but boring. In fact, the GR Corolla is the opposite of boring. It's not just supercar fast around a track. It's not just unexpectedly outrageous. It's a genuinely special and fun car to interact with, at or especially below its limit. And that is really important. We've all just survived a worldwide pandemic. Life is too short and it's too fragile to not prioritize being silly. Who knew Toyota would be trying and succeeding at putting a smile on our faces? After all, fun is the real cure. Especially when everyone else seems to be taking life far too seriously. One notch up above in the coolness factor from the hot hatch and that... Oh, come on! Anthony, I know you're mad. We'll call that a super hatch. I can't, I'm sorry. That one hurt. The real trips hurt. One rung up on the coolness ladder. I'll call those super hatches. No, come on! That was hilarious!