The above car is not the Yaris WRC, don't worry. It's the Yaris R1, built by Toyota Motorsport in Germany and packing a mighty 99hp. But it illustrates the point of a Yaris rally car for now.
This with big arches and a huge wing please
The news of Toyota's possible return to the WRC has come through our colleagues at Motorsport News and then
Autocar
VW's recent success
Hyundai's return
, perhaps top-level rallying is becoming an appealing prospect to manufacturers once again. A WRC-spec 1.6-litre Yaris is being built now as a 'toe-in-the-water' exercise according to Autocar, with a return to world rallying only a possibility at this stage.
But look at the Toyota rallying back catalogue. The Celica GT-Four and Corolla WRC enjoyed decent success back in the 90s as well as just looking damn cool. And if the response to our recent PH Heroes piece on the Celica is anything to go by, that car's rallying exploits influenced many buying decisions. Are you listening Toyota?
Actually, just like this in fact
Toyota Motorsport is of course better known as TMG, responsible for the recently unveiled
GT86 R3
Sport 650
concept. Its only comment so far has been that the project is a 'pretty low-key programme, run in order for us to gain experience of the car'. Testing is scheduled to start in 2014 sometime.
Now we all know a popular rally car is as much about how it looks as how successful it is. So if Toyota could make it look something like the Hybrid-R and get a rally win or two, it could well have another WRC legend on its hands. Let's wait and see.
[Source: Motorsport News via Autocar]
