Is this tuned Toyota GR Yaris better than the original?

[MUSIC] 2020 was a terrible year, awful but it did give us the Toyota GR Yaris and objectively good thing. When you think about it. 2020 is a baseline something to build on. So why 2021 can only be better? Weirdly, it's kind of how Litchfield views the original GIS. It's a baseline. It's a starting point. [MUSIC] If you're into GTR, you'll be familiar with Litchfield, Ian and his team made their name messing with them, making them faster, harder, meaner, everything. The Nissan provided out of the gate. Since then Litchfield has turned its hands to Porsche, Alpine, McLaren and now the GR yaris in its standard trim. The GR yaris comes with 257 beds. Brake horsepower and rally ish suspension. That means it is punishingly quick and hilarious. point to point it really is good giggle okay. It's a little bit noisy on the motorway, but come on now. It's a rally inspired hot patch. It's not a Rolls Royce. One of my favorite things about the Stan Undercard is the rally wobble the way it moves around when you really give it the beans. You can feel the weight shift mid corner and when you break and accelerate really heavily, it's kind of like a big Cadillac from the 70s. But developed by rally legend. As toys go. It's outstanding, but Litchfield didn't want it to be just a toy but something to be enjoyed all the time. There are two main areas to address to make it in lichfields eyes at least bang on power and suspension in its standard guys the GR Yaris is the most powerful three cylinder production car in the world is little 1.6 liter turbo motor will get it from notes 262 in five and a half seconds and up to 143 miles an hour. That's quite petty, but Litchfield has given it a little bit of a tweak. Thanks to NEC YouTube and the turbo boost fettle in now puts out a little over 300 Brake horsepower and 284 pound furred. That should be enough to give the standard figures a little bit of a boost for once of a better word. If you want that extra grunt Litchfield charges about 600 quid for it which is pretty good value. If you listen very, very carefully, you can hear people on the Internet saying but that means the engine will surely go bang. It's built to such tight tolerances that more power will destroy it. Well, armchair engineers Comic cells. In Litchfield reckons you can happily squeeze way more out of it without making it pop. It's a motor built for rallying after all, and rally cars can have big power. [SOUND] When it comes to the ride, Litchfield enjoyed the whole rally wobble. Both Thing, but figured the novelty of it would wear off pretty quickly. So job one was to lower it by 40 millimeters, it just give it a sharper slicker profile. I'll give him that. Then a set of two way adjustable nitrogen dampers was thrown on each corner. Now of course they are adjustable. So you You can have whatever setting Litchfield sends the car out with or you can make it all soft and squishy or make it flat and odd and immobile. The idea here is to set up the car so you can best exploit its power, the schatzi and your will drive system. If you want to learn though he comes in, it's a slightly less affordable three 1000 ish pounds. On top of all that there are wheel spaces adding 20 mil to the track and the seats are on fresh mounting rails dropping the hit points by further 40 millimeters. That means taller drivers can more comfortably hack around circuits with a helmet on something that they may not have found easy. In the stockcar Litchfield has formed we know that much but this all brings an interesting conundrum to mind. The gr Yaris is excellent as Akio Toyoda intended, so is messing with the creative vision, a good idea, and if it is, we still left with the GTRs all something new. I mean, the drive modes are the same normal with it. Front power bias track with its 50 50 front to rear split and sports sending 70% of the front to the back. And it still tells you to drive carefully before it's warmed up and the pipes still sound naughty. [SOUND] So it looks like a GR Yaris, it sounds like GR Yaris, it quacks like a GR Yaris. Is it a GR Yaris? Well, first and foremost, every time I get in one of these, every time I suddenly remember how brilliant they are, this gear shift is absolutely incredible. It's so good. It's so short, sharp, direct. There's nothing wasted. Stayed in it, you just bang next ratio bang next ratio, the clutch again decently weighted which is just it's so engaging, it's proper. The brakes on this are awesome tunes the little bit of damp and then you instantly stop there's all the feedback you could possibly want, so far it's an excellent engaging drivers cup The steering okay, you get the all wheel drive don't listen to it, but it's a sharp as it conveyed it just feels mega. But from the standard cook. So what's Litchfield done Change it. Well we know about the power the standard car isn't lacking for grant at all, but a little bit more. This thing flies. It's so much fun. And on this car, they've taken the resonates rides in the exhaust. So good. No, it sounds good when you're properly high in the river and you here the car inhale, [SOUND] This has got the right amount of usable power. So you can't point and shoot it. Much more than that, you'd end up fighting with the car. You'd wonder what, you needed to do to control it, but as it starts X 300 horsepower and it seems crazy to say this 300 horsepower seems just right, you can use it. You don't end up going way too quickly down a country road with the all wheel drive system. With the control It's your bit. [SOUND] It just it just glides it does exactly what you want it to with Lichfield suspension modifications with the lowered springs and the trick dampers. This does feel like a sharper car. When you pitch it into a corner, it doesn't move. It doesn't wobble when you brake hard when you accelerate how All it's lost all of that pitch. There's nothing really moving it around. Instead This feels like a really properly focused hot hatch is proper engineering levels of points IE Renno sport levels of pointy it doesn't feel like a rally car. Anymore. It feels like the limit of this car has been moved way further. There's some much more front and grip, so much more front and bite, that you can lay down your power a lot earlier. You can get round corners faster, in this. Objectively, the [UNKNOWN] feels Take on the GR Yaris is a better car, it feels so much more grown up. And for a lots of people that's going to be the be all end or it's going to be the perfect solution. You You will get round to Trump quicker. We have more fun. That's I don't know Personally, I prefer the playfulness. But there is a certain subset of people who will absolutely adore this. Has more grip but it's angry or it is pointing to you and it shouts here. It's a faster better car. But it's not a GR Yaris anymore, but it still is because it got the gearshift and the brakes, and the fun thought. Of the noises. It's melting my brain a little bit. This is where things get tricky seat lichfields upgrades make this a better car than the vanilla one it sharper, more powerful and just better at being a hot hatch. Now the power I'm 100% behind is the springs. That's where I started. To get a little bit huffy, you see, the reason I loved the GI era so much and the reason a lot of people do is because of how it feels because of that lien because of the way it moves the way it flows from point to point. The new suspension setup removes that core characteristic of the car. So taking that away But seems a little counterproductive,except removing it makes it better. So if something of a dissonance this to me feels like a sort of GR Yaris or the sprinter Time Attack track hat geared less towards fun and more towards speed. If I was interested in that kinda thing, it feels as though it would have built it. Where do we stand them? Good car. Excellent car, if a tiny bit out of keeping with the car. It's based on if it were me, I definitely go and painted green and then I'd be straight up to Litchfield for the power boost but the springs. They're not really my jam But hey, my yuck could well be your yum [MUSIC]