Australia has a long, proud history of fast cars and motorsport culture baked into the national identity. Which makes it especially funny that Toyota’s latest GR Yaris commercial was deemed too hot for Australian television. Not controversial. Not offensive. Just a little too enthusiastic about driving sideways.
The banned spot plays like a love letter to rally, filtered through a knowingly absurd sense of humor. It opens with the GR Yaris tearing across an empty landscape, its helmeted driver fully committed to blasting sideways at full speed. Gravel sprays like water. Suspension compresses. The car looks alive in a feral, barely contained way that hot hatches used to specialize in before modernity cooled ’em down.
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The Ad Isn’t Offensive
The ad is straight-up goofy. The action starts at a fictional drive-thru called “Up’n Down Burgers,” where a mundane food order becomes the flimsy narrative excuse for more cinematic nonsense. From there, the commercial turns into a full (amateur) Gymkhana video that exists purely to show off the sideways-iness of the GR Yaris. It’s playful, self-aware, and clearly staged, the kind of car commercial that isn’t taking itself or anything else very seriously.
That sense of fun, apparently, was the problem. Australian regulators ruled the ad violated motor vehicle advertising standards by depicting cheeky driving behavior that could be interpreted as unsafe if replicated on public roads. Never mind the professional driver, the controlled environments, or the fact that no one is launching their hatchback off gravel berms on the way to lunch, at least not on purpose. The visual language alone was enough to get it pulled from TV rotation after a complaint.
From a regulatory standpoint, the decision is understandable. From an enthusiast’s perspective, it’s a buzzkill. From an American perspective, it’s utterly unthinkable. The ad wasn’t instructive. It wasn’t realistic. It was aspirational in the same way old rally footage and Hoonigan videos are aspirational. It reminded viewers that performance cars can be ridiculous, theatrical, and fun. If anything, this commercial was honest. These cars are engineered to be fast, and that’s what Toyota’s selling.
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This Makes Us Want A GR Corolla
And that’s where the GR Corolla comes in. Watching the GR Yaris behave like a rally fighter only reinforces how badly we want its bigger sibling. The Corolla carries the same GR DNA, the same unhinged engineering philosophy, and the same refusal to sand off the edges in the name of mass appeal. Toyota’s GR division has built credibility by leaning into motorsport authenticity, and this banned ad feels like a pure expression of that ethos.
If the commercial was meant to make people want to buy a hot hatch, it succeeded, even in exile. It reminded us that we don’t just want speed. We want fun. And preferably, we want it with three pedals and a warranty.