Toyota Motor Philippines recently launched the refreshed version of its popular GR Yaris. For this comparo, we’ll be pitting Toyota’s updated hot hatch against another locally available hot hatch, the Honda Civic Type R. While not exactly an apples-to-apples comparison, it would be interesting to see how these two Japanese hot hatches stack up against each other.
The GR Yaris measures 3,995mm long, 1,805mm wide, and 1,455mm tall, this makes it 598mm shorter, 85mm narrower, and 48mm taller than the Civic Type R. The Toyota hot hatch rides on a 2,560mm wheelbase, which is 175mm less between the axles than Honda’s hot hatch. The GR Yaris has a 5.31m turning radius, which is 0.59m less than the Civic Type R. Toyota’s hot hatch rides on 25-inch diameter 225/40 R18 tires,a this is 0.2 inches smaller than the Honda hot hatch’s 25-inch diameter 265/30 R19 rubber.
The GR Yaris has front track width of 1,536mm and a rear track width of 1,572mm, this is 90mm narrower at the front, and 42mm narrower at the rear versus the Civic Type R. The Toyota hot hatch has a 124mm ground clearance, this is 1mm more than the Honda hot hatch.
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Here's a quick refresher on the two featured vehicles in this comparo. The GR Yaris is Toyota’s all-wheel-drive hot hatch. Toyota describes it as “a homologation model born to win the FIA World Rally Championship.” The GR Yaris made its global debut in January 2020 and landed on our shores in July 2021. This March, Toyota Motor Philippines introduced the updated 2025 model. Aside from the usual exterior and interior styling tweaks, the biggest changes happen under the hood. Its 1.6-liter turbocharged in-line-three now makes 276hp and 390Nm of torque, an increase of 19 horses and 30Nm. The other big news is the availability of an eight-speed automatic transmission option.
The Civic Type R is Honda’s legendary hot hatch which is now on its sixth generation. Like its predecessors, it was developed as a track-focused high-performance machine. The front-wheel-drive Honda hot hatch is powered by a 2.0-liter turbocharged in-line-four mill which puts out 315hp and 420Nm of torque. The Type R is only offered with a six-speed manual transmission.
Both the B-segment GR Yaris and the larger C-segment Civic Type R can only seat four.
As of this writing, the refreshed GR Yaris costs P3.391 million for the MT variant and P3.55 million for the AT variant. The Civic Type R, meanwhile, carries a price tag of P3.87 million.
Would you choose the updated GR Yaris over the Civic Type R? Let us know in the comments.
