James May Makes Best YouTube Unboxing Video Yet

Grand Tour host takes his sweet time ‘unboxing’ a Toyota Yaris GRMN, and it’s glorious to watch.

Former Top Gear presenter and current Grand Tour host, James May, has, perhaps, the driest sense of humor between his cohorts of Richard Hammond and Jeremy Clarkson. This, of course, famously makes him very entertaining, even when doing some of life’s more mundane tasks.

Here, May has taken the Internet unboxing video trend to a whole new level with his part parody and part actual reveal of Europe’s latest darling of the hot hatches, the limited-edition Toyota Yaris GRMN, for his JM’s unemployment tube YouTube channel.

To set the tone, May reminds us: “Remember, you only unbox something once. Something that has once been unboxed can never be boxed again because it’s already been unboxed.” before he gives us the stats, printed on the box, of the GRMN Toyota Yaris residing inside.

The Gazoo Racing version of the Yaris has a supercharged version of Toyota’s 1.8-liter 4-cylinder engine, which has also been tuned by Lotus to make 209 horsepower. A big number for such a small and light car. If you’re wondering what GRMN stands for, May explains it’s: “Gazoo Racing Masters of the Nurburgring. Complete bollocks, I know.” This European-exclusive, micro hot hatch has been designed to thrash around the famous track.

Once May has taken his sweet, sweet, time dwelling over the experience of “unboxing” his GRMN Yaris, then taking the comical cardboard protectors off of the steering wheel and seats, we see the car in all of its glory before May sits down to read the handbook. He takes great delight in pointing out the absurdities of the warnings before reminding us that, “The honest truth about this sort of thing is this is a car, not a machine tool, it’s not a machine gun, it’s not a space shuttle. If you can’t work out how to use it by simply using it, it hasn’t been designed properly.”

Those are wise words from a man, who at the beginning of the video, was calling for a nurse because he was so excited at pulling a pull-tab from a giant box.

Join the 6SpeedOnline forums today!

Ian Wright

Ian Wright has been a professional writer for two years and is a regular contributor to Corvette Forum, Jaguar Forum, and 6SpeedOnline, among other auto sites.

His obsession with cars started young and has left him stranded miles off-road in Land Rovers, being lost far from home in hot hatches, going sideways in rallycross cars, being propelled forward in supercars and, more sensibly, standing in fields staring at classic cars. His first job was as a mechanic and then trained as a driving instructor before going into media production.

The automotive itch never left though, and he realized writing about cars is his true calling. However, that doesn’t stop him from also hosting the Both Hand Drive podcast.

Ian can be reached at bothhanddrive@gmail.com