The 2007 Toyota Yaris

were seeing lots of them here as they have been on the Canadian market for months now and yup not the best looking front end in my opinion. I liked the Echo Hatchback a lot better than the Yaris. I think Toyota made an ugly duckling on this one.

 

actually I haven't seen the sedan yet. Lots of hatches. you mean it's even worse?

 

Personally, I like the look of the Yaris sedan. What will be nice is if Toyota puts in a 1.0 liter version of the HSD. You'd be looking at 60+ mph routinely with the room of a Corolla. It will come.

 

you just gotta learn to slouch!

 

I bought my parents a bayou blue metallic Yaris. My mom loves it. She has to commute downtown and it is a cinch to parallel park and u-turn. It's pretty good on gas too. They are getting around 6.7L/100km. They drove a craptacular Neon before which they bought new last year. It was getting around 9.8L/100km.

 

i saw my first Yaris today. The second i saw it i knew what it was. I smilled and stared as i drove by. they were looking at me too. It was that light green color. not bad

 

I don't think Toyota should keep trying to force-feed the Starlet/Tercel/Echo/Yaris "segment"
Especially since they've just injected the Scion into the "low end". Of the four, the Tercel was the best, but even the sales of that weren't good enough for Toyota. There's no low-end Honda to compete with, either. Are they going after Aveo sales?

This is another whole topic, but I worry a little about Toyota overextending itself. Having reached "maturity" as an automaker sometime in the last 15 years (you can argue when),
they now probably make too many cars after very rapid expansion. The "Big 3" also overextended themselves and were forced to retrench---unfortunately, long after they should have.

Ford had to quickly back off the Edsel when it was apparent there was no new market segment for it. Probably only the Navigator saved Lincoln, but probably only postponed the inevitable. Chrysler had to ditch the DeSoto, then, ultimately, the Plymouth. GM held onto Oldsmobile too long, Pontiac is struggling and GMC might have to be abandoned.

I know there are other factors at play here---changing tastes, inability to shed old "images", etc.---but all I'm saying is that it seems to be a pattern to have to pull in your horns at some point.

Toyota is all too aware of the potential problem, having said so just half a year ago---worrying about quality control, management span, maintaining adequate training, etc. But I'd guess dropping a car line or two when you're making money hand over fist is very hard to actually do. Manufacturing in several different countries must tax management, too.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(ghostofjk @ May 7 2006, 10:22 PM) [snapback]251333[/snapback]</div>

Isn't it direct competition with the Honda Fit?

 

Btw, the Yaris is really just a renamed Echo. I heard the Echo name garnered so much stigma that no reinvention would get around the name. Sorta like the Chevy Nova?

 

Uhm, the yaris is quite better than the echo.

In japan its the vitz, i saw it in person a year ago and was quite impressed.. they have the four door yaris hatch which is awesome and it even comes with smart entry.

it is in competition with the honda fit. its already in comp. with the fit in japan

and scion vs. yaris: the yaris is still okay because its for different target groups. scion was basically started by asking the young designers to design something they would buy. even though scions and yaris are cheap, scions are targeted for the young audience as proven by all the customizations you can add onto them. yaris is more for people who want the reliability of a toyota but they can't afford a camry, and they are a bit more mature for scions.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(flareak @ May 8 2006, 12:02 AM) [snapback]251355[/snapback]</div>

2nd Gen Vitz (aka Echo) and also Wikipedia. SCP10 or NCP10 - 13 and TRD parts.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Tideland Prius @ May 8 2006, 12:02 AM) [snapback]251356[/snapback]</div>

I became aware of Toyota's Japanese lineup two years ago, and my jaw dropped.

The total number of models available to the Japanese from Toyota, Nissan, Honda, Subaru, Mazda, Mitsubishi, Isuzu and Suzuki must be mind-blowing.

I repeat: too many models. Or is Toyota really a covert employment program for engineers?