13-Month Build: Half-Scale GR Yaris Rally1 Actually Drives

This started as a home project and ended up somewhere no one expected. Justin White, the guy behind Garage Avenger, spent 13 months building a half-scale GR Yaris Rally1 you can sit in and drive.

Not a model. Not a showpiece. A proper little car that works.

The body is all 3D-printed. Over 120 pieces were glued, sanded, and shaped until they looked right. It keeps the wide, aggressive stance of the real WRC car. There are no doors, but the roof lifts off so you can get in. It even has working lights and sliding plexiglass windows, which says a lot about how far he took it.

Then it got noticed. Gazoo Racing saw it, sent over an official livery, and flew both the car and Justin out to Monte Carlo. That doesn’t usually happen to garage builds.

Underneath, it’s built on a cross-kart chassis that’s been stretched to match the proportions. Power comes from a motorcycle engine with about 118 hp. In something this small and light, that’s more than enough.

It’s already hit around 58 mph in testing, and he says it should reach 93 mph. In a half-scale car you built yourself, that’s pretty wild.

It wasn’t perfect right away. Too much grip made it tricky to handle, so he swapped to simpler tires and adjusted the chassis to get some movement back. Just proper trial and error, figuring things out as he went.

And it’s not just for looks. The car actually ran on WRC stages in the Alps and sat next to the real Rally1 car in Monte Carlo. Even people from the sport stopped to check it out.