Kett":3rafovwl said:
Good choice Dulan.
I’ve been thinking about the same... but need deliberation before pulling the trigger.
I missed the opportunity when the demo visited Swansea dealership in September.
I’d like to know that it feels properly surefooted at Motorways speeds and that the gear change is snickerty. I also need to check the interior.
Indeed, Kett, I hope so....but from what I have seen and read so far, I think the GRY will be quite the car, and just what I was looking for.
Started off looking out for a Porsche GT4, but felt that it was the wrong time to get into one since there are those who upgraded from a 718 GTS to a 718 GT4 and either regretted it or they wanted to, and didn't go through with it since the difference wasn't stark in the real world - on-track performance is different. Once COVID hit, there was downward pressure on prices, which should be good for buyers, but ever since the GRY surfaced I found it difficult to justify a GT4.
I sat in a GRY pre-prod model in July, during its first preview tour. Not much interest at all back then so managed to spend around an hour crawling around the car, which was inside the dealership's showroom. These cars weren't road registered and were LHD variants, so not really representative of what we would get here in the UK. The equipment was also slightly different. Each customer was given a feedback form to fill out - my main feedback as about the spacing between the brake and accelerator pedal and that the driver's seat did not go low enough. Apart from that, to me, all else was okay for a car that would need to serve one purpose - to go around corners well, and be useable for touring/long journeys.
Gearshifts, whilst stationary, were good, better than both the Vee and the Exige, but not as slick as the S2000 (the best box I have experienced to date). Its a short-throw box, so the ratios should be well matched. In fact, reviews so far seemed to indicate that the gearshift is good, but in some videos, there appears to be a slight lunge when changing up at speed. Not sure whether this is a consequence of a bad shift or something else. In fact, the worst I saw was in a video where a German rally driver (2-time women's champion) was hustling a GRY circuit pack car along. This is something I am keen to check out during the test drive.
I don't think you will find cause for concern with a circuit pack car since the MPS 4S tyres are superb, in the dry, and also in damp and wet conditions. Having run MPSS tyres on [v6plaque]002[/v6plaque] now for several years, I will definitely go for MPS 4S when it is time to change. As regards the interior, well I don't think it matches up to the VAG standard, but that doesn't bother me. I can safely say that the GRY's interior is vastly superior to that of the Vee and the Exige S RGB.
I did a rough comparison of the performance characteristics of the 3 cars, and the outcome was quite interesting (see below). Safe to say that I will be happy with this combination and level of useable performance on public roads. For me, there is no need to get a faster car, that will invariably be heavier, longer, wider, or all three combined, and is likely to be expensive and also have high maintenance costs. If I was going to track it often, then upgraded (series 3) Exige would be the way forward, but to me, the Series 2 RGB (or the Scura, if one can find one) is the sweet spot
As such, IMO, at just under £35K, the GR Yaris Circuit Pack is really good value when you take into consideration its design, engineering, the level of testing and fine-tuning it went through, and the whole bespoke nature of the project. Only the front and rear light clusters, side mirrors and the sharkfin antenna were carried over from the regular (5-door) Yaris. Further, one gets a 5-year/100,000-mile warranty, and the servicing intervals are every 10,000 miles or 12 months. Of course, not being a daily driver, that doesn't really bother me, but it makes a good case for those who are looking to use it every day, and in all weathers. I think GRY will be an excellent all-weather car.
