Toyota Aygo pops its top

TOYOTA South Africa has catered to fans of open-air driving on a budget with a new folding soft top version of its smallest car, the Aygo.

The big deal about the new Aygo X-Cite is that it has a folding canvas roof extending from just above the windshield all the way to the rear spoiler - the first of this type we’ve seen since the launch of the Citroen DS3 Cabriolet five years ago. It’s completely manual in operation and, as such, should add no more than a kilo or two to the car’s weight.

The X-Cite also comes with a number of features not found on its tintop siblings, including stability control, hill hold, LED daytime running lights, a fancy audio display with a colour touchscreen in place of the standard liquid-crystal disply, side curtain airbags, and 15” alloys shod with 165/60 radials in place of the usual 14” steel rims. This however means that in place of the standard space-saver spare, the X-Cite has to make do with a repair kit.

Mechanically the cabrio is identical to its conventional siblings, with a 998cc petrol three rated at 51kW and 95Nm turning the front wheels via a five-speed manual ‘box, for the same quoted performance figures of 14.2 seconds to 100km/h and 160km/h flat out.

The canvas roof and extra kit will, however, cost you R28 000 more than the higher-specced of the two tintop Aygo hatchback variants, for a total of R189 500.