Toyota Is Officially Making A Hot Yaris To Give The Fiesta ST A Good Kicking

Despite the addition of a Lexus-inspired ‘Predator face’ during its last facelift, the Toyota Yaris is probably the least exciting small hatchback you can buy. The Ford Fiesta is the fun one da yoof will happily buy, whereas the Yaris is something you’d expect to see on your grandparents’ driveway.

However, the Yaris range is about to get a lot more exciting, thanks to a new Fiesta ST-rivaling hot hatchback which the Japanese company has just announced, teased with the sketch above. Now you’re talking, Toyota!

Although Toyota doesn’t really do much in the way of sporty cars - GT86 and F cars from luxury subsidiary Lexus aside - this isn’t as much of a surprise as you might think. In 2017 Toyota will enter the World Rally Championship using the spectacularly angry Yaris you can see above, which packs a 375bhp 1.6-litre turbocharged four-pot. In other words, fast and noisy things are firmly on the agenda. Toyota plans to distill this WRC lunacy into a road-going Yaris via motorsport team Gazoo, resulting in quite a potent little package.

Other than that, Toyota hasn’t revealed any substantial details. But, we can expect a similarly sized turbo four-pot under the bonnet, putting out somewhere in the region of 200bhp.

Would you have a hot Yaris over a hot Fiesta?