Um, did someone just use ‘Toyota Yaris’ and ‘motorsports’ in the same sentence?

A Toyota Yaris rally car? Yep. Believe it or not, that’s a thing.

When you think of motorsports, chances are the Toyota Yaris, easy to dismiss as a nondescript, entry-level econo-box, isn’t the first vehicle that comes to mind, even though, needless to say, Toyota has earned plenty of credibility for building outstanding sports cars like the Supra, the 86, and the MR2.

Yet the Toyota Yaris WRC, a vehicle purpose-built by Toyota Gazoo Racing, has been holding its own on the European rally circuit since its debut in the 2017 FIA World Rally Championship. 

Small hatchbacks are no strangers to the rallying world, of course. Light weight, a low center of gravity, and nimble handling are obvious ingredients of what makes a good rally car, and those are all attributes of subcompact hatchbacks.

But the Toyota Yaris?

Well, maybe it’s just an image problem. Maybe the Yaris is just a car that Toyota hasn’t quite figured out how to position yet. Somehow it doesn’t seem to have earned the same kind of hot-hatch cred of, say, a Volkswagen GTI or a Ford Fiesta ST.

Yet if you look at the numbers and competition record, the Toyota Yaris WRC is worthy of respect. When the Toyota Yaris debuted WRC for the 2017 season, Toyota Gazoo Racing claimed that they had squeezed an impressive 380 horsepower out of the diminutive 1.6-litre 4-banger under the hood.

And since then, the Toyota Yaris WRC has logged some formidable accomplishments on the rally circuit. Today, for instance, Estonian driver Ott Tänak took the Toyota Yaris WRC to its third Rally Finland victory in three years.

In the past three WRC seasons overall, Toyota Gazoo Racing’s Yaris WRC finished third in 2017 and first in 2018.

After today’s Rally Finland victory, Tänak and his Yaris WRC lead the field with 180 points, followed by Belgian racers Sébastien Ogier with his Citroën C3 WRC and Thierry Neuville with his Hyundai I20 WRC trailing at 158 and 155 points, respectively, according to Autosport.

That track record is not too shabby for the Yaris WRC—especially considering that it’s built on a platform that, in 2018, accounted for only about 1 percent of Toyota’s total 2018 U.S. sales, according Toyota’s December 2018 sales chart. 

So is this exciting cred on the European rally circuit making you want to run out and buy a Yaris?

If so, in the context of today’s new-car prices, it won’t put a huge hurtin’ on your wallet. Although the version you’ll find at your local Toyota showroom certainly won’t be rally-ready, a 2020 Toyota Yaris hatchback will have the starting price of a mere $18,705, according to Motor1.