Toyota GR Yaris in France: A Pricey Proposition for Hot Hatch Fans
by AutoExpert | 12 February, 2024
The Toyota GR Yaris stands out as one of the most remarkable hot hatches of our time. With its true-to-form performance abilities, it’s an impossible choice to pass over for enthusiasts. Even so, if you’re French, the attraction towards the hot hatch should be out-of-this-world for justifying the purchase.
That’s because, in France, customers won’t just have to pay a pretty penny, as the French government’s emissions tax scale means that some versions of the car will have a six-figure price tag, they’ll also have to fight over the limited amount of the facelifted GR Yaris.
The real madness starts with the GR Yaris’s already high MSRP. In France, the starting price for the rally-bred hatch is set at 49.800 USD when powered by a manual gearbox and goes up to around 52,500 USD for the latest edition with the automatic transmission.
Due to the high-powered GR engine, examples equipped with a manual transmission emit 190 grams of CO2 per kilometer, and those with an automatic transmission emit 210 grams per kilometer.
The figures demonstrate that the GR Yaris is one of the major brackets for France’s CO2 tax. The brackets mean that French buyers opting for the automatic version will face an additional charge of around 64.600 USD, while buyers opting for the GR Yaris fitted with a manual transmission will have to pay approximately 49.500 USD.
A Toyota France spokesperson clarified that the figures regarding the emissions are preliminary and that the official numbers will be out in June. The company stated that those numbers mirror the “worst” layout for the car, but one that is an actual possibility.
Despite the eye-watering fee, the company offers a 300 GR Yaris on the French market as well. This allocation hints that it believes this number should meet the request, despite the price more than doubling to a total of 99,300 USD for the version furnished with the manual transmission and around 117,100 USD for the one trimmed with the automatic transmission.
On that note, we can’t help but ask: would you be willing to invest that kind of money in a hot hatch?
