Toyota Shows How GR Yaris Is Made, Hints At More GR Cars

The Toyota GR Yaris seems like a fantastic, little hot hatch. In a recently released video, the automaker shows the assembly line that builds the GR Yaris and would probably handle assembly of future performance vehicles, too.

The dedicated GR production line is at Toyota's Motomachi factory. The automaker set it to move assembly through various cells that allow for more work by hand than a standard vehicle at this plant. As the company describes the strategy in the video, the goal is to have a place that can "produce millions of sports cars without any difference in quality."

A GR Yaris is not just the standard model with a few different parts. For example, there's an additional 36 feet (11 meters) of structural adhesive and 200 extra welds in an effort to boost rigidity. Technicians handle adjusting the alignment on each car.

"With its new manufacturing methods, the GR facility is capable of handling multi-type, small-volume production, without compromising productivity," Toyota writes in the description for this video. While the statement is hardly definitive, it lends further credence to the idea that the GR Yaris is not a one-off undertaking. After making the investment to set up this production line, abandoning the effort so quickly wouldn't make much sense.

The rumors are that the Corolla or the C-HR are most likely to be the next vehicles to get the GR treatment. Either of them could be fun with the GR Yaris' turbocharged 1.6-liter three-cylinder making 257 horsepower (192 kilowatts) and 266 pound-feet (360 Newton-meters). Plus the hot hatch has a three-mode, all-wheel-drive system that lets owners select the torque split.