WATCH: Toyota embarks on a sporty venture with its Yaris GRMN

Toyota is best known for reliability and fuel-efficiency, but is that all that the Japanese car maker can pull off?

Toyota has stuck their toe into a different pond than what they are used to with the sporty little Toyota Yaris GRMN. This hot hatch is the car maker’s attempt to battle the Volkswagen Polo GTI and the Hyundai i30N.

The car is powered by a supercharged 1.8-litre four-cylinder engine that has been mated to a six-speed manual transmission.

READ: Toyota used to make badass cars: Has the automaker rekindled its legendary spirit with the fiery 1.8-litre Yaris GRMN hot hatch?

The Yaris GRMN is no slouch as it produces 156kW and 250Nm, giving this youth mobile a claimed top speed of 230km/h.

However, there is a tremendous downside to this fantastic little machine, petrol heads in South Africa will unfortunately not be able to purchase one as it will be limited to Europe only.   

With that said, Toyota South Africa do have three units in the country for marketing purposes, and we are pretty sure they'll go on sale one day.

                                                         Image: Wheels24