I’m a rally ace and drove Toyota’s GR86 – it gives you a thrill behind the wheel and looks great too
IF Toyota’s in it, they’ll win it.
At least that’s how it seems, looking at these incredible results:
Le Mans: 1st. 1st. 1st. 1st. 1st.
Dakar: 1st. 1st.
World Rally Championship: 1st. 1st. 1st. 1st.
The only thing Toyota hasn’t dominated these past few years is F1 – and that’s because it is not in it.
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It’s not just a marketing exercise, either.
All the know-how gained from motorsport filters down to make road cars like the GR Yaris, GR Supra and GR 86 even better.
We asked Toyota rally ace Elfyn Evans, above right, to try the peachy GR 86, an old-school rear-drive manual sports car costing £30k.
Guess what? He liked it.
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The Welshman said: “It’s a very fun car. Quite a peaky engine, quite a firm ride, quite dynamic also.
“It’s one of the few cars where you can really feel a connection with the road.
“I think it looks great too. It’s a proper sportscar for almost half the price of a comparable-looking, or even feeling, car. Much like the GR Yaris, you get a lot of value for money.
“It perhaps wouldn’t be top of your list for comfort or practicality but it’s not designed for that. It’s designed to give you a thrill behind the wheel. It’s designed to look good. It ticks all the boxes in that regard.”
Toyota chief Akio Toyoda adores this little car and even challenged his WRC stars to beat his lap time in one after Rally Japan.
Elfyn said: “He’s a very good driver – and he’d been practising.
“There is a real passion within Toyota to make better cars through the learning of technologies in motorsport and that’s largely what the GR brand (Gazoo Racing) is all about – to bridge the relationship between the two.
“With cars like the GR Yaris and GR 86, that’s really coming through.”
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Toyota has won four consecutive world rally titles, with Elfyn finishing runner-up in 2020 and 2021.
His 2023 title bid kicks off with today’s legendary Rallye Monte Carlo.
Keep it lit, Elfyn.
Now read some of the best bits from our chat . . .
ELFYN ON . . . WRC
“THE target is always the same – to win. It wasn’t a strong season for us last year but prior to that we were runner-up two years running and fighting for the title until the last round.
“I didn’t gel with the new Yaris as well as I did with the previous generation. We really had to work to try to understand how to get the best out of it. But 12 months in, I feel like we’re in a much better position.
“It’s a complicated sport. It’s not just driver, it’s the co-driver, it’s the car. A lot of factors have to come together, and you need a bit of luck.
“Monte is such a lottery. There are so many elements to get right. But if you win the Monte you know you have done something pretty special.
“The focus is to drive well and to see where we end up – but the target is to win.”
ELFYN ON . . . DRIVE TO SURVIVE
“WRC has some of the most spectacular images of any sport. It’s very unpredictable. But I don’t think it is conveyed very well at the moment. The promotion of the championship could be better.
“Drive To Survive has been incredible for F1. I’m not sure that’s the answer for WRC but somebody needs to come up with something to portray what goes on, a lot better than it is doing at the moment.”
ELFYN ON . . . RALLY GB
“IT’S a disaster that we don’t have a round of the world championship any more.
“Ari Vatanen said he fell in love with the sport going to watch Rally Finland early in the morning, seeing the cars come through with their brakes glowing in the darkness, the sounds, the smells – and we all know how his story turned out.
“Without Rally GB there is no hope of inspiring youngsters to even follow the sport, let alone try to enter it.”
ELFYN ON . . . KEN BLOCK
“IT was a massive shock for everybody. What Ken did for rallying and motorsport in general was huge. He was one of the biggest motorsports people of the last 20 years.
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“He had great vision, he was very good at what he did, all the Gymkhana stuff, and he always managed to come up with something new and push the boundaries.
“We were at Ford at the same time. RIP Ken.”
KEY FACTS: TOYOTA GR 86
Price: £29,995
Engine: 2.4-litre petrol
0-62mph: 6.3 secs
Power: 234hp, 250Nm
Top speed: 140mph
Economy: 32mpg Co2: 200g/km