Toyota
The Toyota Vitz is one of 495 Toyota models in the MotorJury library, the catalogue that sets out to hold every car ever made — production, prototype and concept alike. The record places its introduction in 1999. The photography on this page is hotlinked from Wikimedia Commons under an open licence, with the photographer credited on every frame.
To read the Toyota Vitz properly it helps to place it in its decade. The 1990s were the decade of refinement — airbags and ABS became universal, Japanese build quality set the world standard, and the modern SUV segment was effectively invented. Any car launched into that world was shaped by it — by what materials, engineering and regulation allowed, and by what buyers of the day demanded. Its direct contemporaries in this catalogue, introduced within three years of it, include the SEAT SEAT León, the Škoda Auto Škoda Fabia, the BMW BMW X5 — the cars a buyer of the period would actually have cross-shopped.
On paper, the Toyota Vitz reads like this: the record lists its engine as Petrol engine / Petrol: / 1.0 L Toyota SZ engine#1SZ-FE / 1SZ-FE Straight-four engine / I4 / 1.3 L Toyota A engine#8A-FE / 8A-FE I4 (China) / 1.3 L Toyota SZ engine#; quoted output is 50 kW (1SZ-FE) / 65 kW (8A-FE and 2SZ-FE) / 64 kW (2NZ-FE) / 79 kW (1NZ-FE) / 110 kW (1NZ-FTE) / 55 kW (1ND-TV); kerb weight is recorded at 810 –; drive goes through 5-speed Manual transmission / manual + option automatic clutch for the 1.0 L Free-Tronic versions or a MultiMode manual transmission / 4-speed Toyota A transmission / AW80-40L; the layout is Front-engine, front-wheel-drive / Front-engine, four-wheel-drive (Japan only). Worked together, those figures give roughly 62 horsepower per tonne — the single number that says more about how a car actually moves than any of its parts alone. Every figure above is a manufacturer specification carried by the Wikipedia infobox or the open Wikidata record for this model — nothing on this page is estimated, and where a source is silent the row simply does not appear.
Within Toyota's own catalogue the Toyota Vitz sits alongside the Toyota Agya, the Toyota Calya, the Toyota Cami, the Toyota Duet. The record names the Toyota Starlet as its predecessor and the Toyota Yaris (XP210) (Japan, Europe and Australasia) / Toyota Yaris (XP150) / Toyota Yaris hatchback (XP150) (parts of Asia and South Africa) / Mazda2#Toyota Yaris / Toyota Yaris h as its successor, fixing its place in the model line's chronology. Design is credited to Hirokazu Ikuma and Sotiris Kovos (1997). Assembly is recorded at Japan: Toyota, Aichi (Takaoka plant) / China: Tianjin (Tianjin FAW) / France: Onnaing (Toyota Motor Manufacturing France).
What this page cannot yet tell you is what the Toyota Vitz costs to live with — that is a different dataset. MotorJury's ownership verdicts are computed from federal complaint and recall records plus EPA economy data, published per model year as the nightly ingest reaches each car. If this model was sold in the United States, its years will surface in the ownership database; browse it live or price any car yourself with the true-cost calculator.
Specifications come from the Wikipedia infobox for this model (CC BY-SA) and the open Wikidata record, and are shown only where a source actually carries them — nothing here is estimated. Figures are manufacturer specifications, not measured results.
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Ownership verdicts are computed from NHTSA complaint and recall records plus EPA economy data, re-priced for your country. Verdicts are published per model year as the data is ingested — browse them live, or open the true-cost calculator to price any year yourself.
Contemporaries from other marques, introduced within three years of this car.