Why Toyota didn’t follow VW, Hyundai with dual-clutch hot hatches

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Why Toyota didn’t follow VW, Hyundai with dual-clutch hot hatches

Many brands have moved to dual-clutch automatic transmissions for their road-going performance cars to achieve lightning-fast shift times and a responsive driving experience.

Despite that, the classic torque-converter automatic has been enjoying a resurgence in performance cars – and that’s exactly what Toyota has opted for with its new automatic

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and

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hatches.

Both cars were previously manual-only and are built using technology and expertise developed through World Rally Championship (WRC) competition. Both now use eight-speed automatics that have been developed with motorsport and track use firmly in mind.

Toyota Australia product planning specialist, Obi Morgan, told CarExpert the brand is most familiar with torque converters, especially in its faster cars, over other technologies.

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.

Camera Icon2025 Toyota GR Corolla GTS Credit: CarExpert

“[Naohiko Saito, GR chief engineer in charge of GR Yaris] referenced that we have a long history with torque converters and that we are comfortable in developing that technology and pushing it into the performance space,” he said.

“We felt on balance with the everyday drivability benefits that the torque converter brings, if we could get that performance to the point where it’s very close to a DCT [dual-clutch auto] then that’s the best position for the customer.

‘That’s how I feel about it … there’s not a massive trade-off in terms of the speed and response, and at the same time in daily driving you’re not having that kind of low-speed shunt or the inner-city traffic problems you have with a DCT. That was the vision, and I think we’ve delivered on it.”

In using a torque converter, Toyota has distanced itself from a range of its closest performance rivals. Hyundai, which fields a WRC team in competition with Toyota, employs a dual-clutch auto in its

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performance hatch alongside a manual option. The smaller rally-derived

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is manual-only.

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European brands have also long embraced the dual-clutch auto. Volkswagen uses its own dual-clutch Direct Shift Gearbox (DSG) in automatic versions of its hotted-up

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and Golf R among many others, along with related cars like the

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,

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, and

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.

Outside of the Volkswagen Group, BMW also employs dual-clutch autos in its

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hatches. It did, however, announce its M performance division would be

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in 2023 despite previously fitting them in multiple vehicles.

Other obvious options for Toyota include continuously variable transmissions (CVTs), which the company has been producing for over two decades.

Using a CVT in a performance lineup theoretically provides unbeaten smoothness and shift times, purely because there’s no need to shift at all.

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It’s the option Subaru has gone with for automatic versions of its

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– a brand in which Toyota holds a significant stake – despite using torque converters in the past.

Regardless, Toyota has used torque converters for even longer. Such transmissions were used exclusively as an alternative to manuals in sporty cars like the Celica,

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, and MR-2 among others, and the Japanese brand has never fitted a dual-clutch auto to a production car from the factory.

It’s not the first time torque converters have been used for GR road cars either, as you’ll find such units in both the

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and BMW-derived GR Supra.

Toyota’s updated GR Corolla, available as a manual or auto, is available now. The automatic GR Yaris will arrive in mid-2025.

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