Fashionably late
FOR Hybrid stuff works well, some interesting ideas here
AGAINST Ride needs some improving, sometimes sluggish
Toyota is a bit stubborn – got there first with all that hybrid malarkey, to be fair, but a bit slow on the uptake with some of the latest automotive fashions – electric cars, stylish tiny SUVs, that sort of thing. Still nothing electric, but this new, higher Yaris hopes to fill a gap in the range as it must surely be bleeding sales to taller, less practical, but more fashionable cars. Cross? Must be furious.
The Yaris Cross looks alright for what it is – it’s got a sort of manga Volvo XC40 thing going on with its bluff front and rear and even the squared wheelarches have a first-gen RAV4 vibe. With its handy urban frugality and inoffensively stylish look, this Toyota’s got school-run mums firmly in its Cross-hairs.
It’s frugal because there’s only the one powertrain option, the familiar 1.5-litre 3cyl engine from the Yaris complete with fancy hybrid set-up. The new car also uses the same TNGA platform that underpins a load of other Toyotas (including the boring, normal height Yaris) and has been credited with making them much more fun to drive than in recent times.
It’s still relative, of course – the Yaris Cross does feel similar to the standard car, and it’s fairly chuckable and light. Could be we’ve driven too many heavy cars recently – the car’s 1,200kg kerbweight tips it just over, say, the Juke. The traditional CVT scream is refreshingly muted, thanks to improved low down torque from the engine and electrics. We even got about 57mpg on our route of mixed urban and country roads.
The ride is a bit disappointing – quite firm and fussy, to the extent that the mirrors were vibrating – but we must lob in the caveat that we were behind the wheel of a left-hand-drive pre-production car with a few more tweaks to be made to ride and refinement before UK deliveries start in September (orders are already open). The comfortably squishy seats help improve things – the interior might not match the pizzazz of the outside, but it’s all very solid and there are some nice places to hide things up front. There’s decent room for rear passengers and 400 litres of space in the boot. A nice touch back there – a 60:40 split flexible floor, for added practicality.
The clever thing about arriving late to a segment as established as this is that you can look at everyone else’s efforts and make your own improvements. Except being stubborn, Toyota has stuck firmly to its middle of the road credentials and come up with a perfectly useful option that’ll appeal to sensible types without pushing any boundaries.