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Road Test: Toyota Aygo x-play 1.0 VVTi

By / 9 years ago / Road Tests / No Comments

Sector: City Car Price: £10,195 Fuel: 68.9mpg CO2: 95g/km

Nine years. It’s a long life for any vehicle, particularly in the fast-moving, style-conscious city car segment. So it’s testament to the first-generation Aygo that it managed to last that long without looking completely outdated.

With input from PSA Peugeot-Citroen, Toyota’s first city car was perfect for its segment. Designed to offer a playful side to the brand long before cars like the GT86 came on stream, its plethora of coloured special editions, well-placed TV sponsorship and subtle updates kept it looking fresh.

Plus it was clever. The Aygo avoided frivolity wherever possible, with its single wiper, fixed headrests, all-glass tailgate and pop-out rear windows, in turn keeping it light and fun to drive, without making it too small to function. If you needed space for four (albeit only with overnight bags) but didn’t want the bulk of a larger car, it worked brilliantly.

So, for the most part, the new one hasn’t deviated from that recipe. It’s still a one-box design, with a stubby bonnet, flat back end and skinny wheels pushed out to the corners. Frivolity is minimal, with the exposed metal and plastic around the cabin, and the same weight and cost-saving engineering as its predecessor.

The kerb weight has shrunk between generations, while a stiffer body, wider tracks and suspension upgrades have kept the old car’s dartiness alive. Toyota hasn’t taken PSA’s 82bhp petrol engine, but it’s really not needed. Updates to the 1.0-litre three-cylinder have cut fuel consumption while boosting low-end torque, and it’s been acoustically tuned to give that characteristic growl that customers loved in the old car.

It’s the exterior design which has really moved forward. The Aygo makes its French counterparts look conservative, wearing a front end emblazoned with a contrasting X shape as if it’s bursting out of its own bodyshell, and angular tail lamps at the back. It’ll divide opinions, but nothing in the A-segment looks this distinctive.

Toyota has also got to grips with personalisation options, which means the already bold Aygo can try even harder not to blend in. There are three colours, other than the standard black, for the X-shaped panel at the front, while elements of the wheels and bumpers can be colour coded or contrasted to suit buyers’ tastes. While that’s a recipe for garish orange-on-black concoctions, it wears sober blues and greys surprisingly well too.

The cabin is almost identical to the C1 and 108 – modern and spacious but aesthetically not quite up to the likes of the Volkswagen Group’s city cars. However, the built in x-touch multimedia system is intuitive and it’s possible to get a built-in navigation function rather than relying on the streaming smartphone app, and this isn’t available from Peugeot or Citroen.

Going bold on the styling will be a positive and a negative for Toyota, but it’s great to see the brand is taking risks and it should net conquest customers as a result. Replacing a popular model can’t have been easy, but this should looks as fashionable as its predecessor for years to come.

Verdict:

Fun to drive, practical and characterful in design, the Aygo is well placed to get noticed in the competitive A-segment. It’s worth looking at a toned down colour palette if the bolder hues don’t appeal.

 

 

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Alex Grant

Trained on Cardiff University’s renowned Postgraduate Diploma in Motor Magazine Journalism, Alex is an award-winning motoring journalist with ten years’ experience across B2B and consumer titles. A life-long car enthusiast with a fascination for new technology and future drivetrains, he joined Fleet World in April 2011, contributing across the magazine and website portfolio and editing the EV Fleet World Website.