The Toyota Vitz is the Toyota that answered a simple question — how much car can this badge carry? — with 50 kW from Petrol engine. It was built from 1999 to 2020, when airbags, anti-lock brakes and Japanese build quality became the world standard. Hirokazu Ikuma and Sotiris Kovos (1997) drew it.
How it came about
The Toyota Vitz (Japanese: トヨタ・ヴィッツ, Hepburn: Toyota Vittsu) is a subcompact car produced by the Japanese automobile manufacturer Toyota from 1999 to 2019 in a three- or five-door hatchback body styles. The "Vitz" nameplate was used consistently in Japan, while most international markets received the same vehicle as the Toyota Yaris, or as the Toyota Echo in some markets for the first generation. The Vitz was available in Japan from Toyota's Netz Store dealerships.
Toyota began production in Japan and later assembled the vehicle in other Asian countries and in France. By 2010, the first two generations had achieved in excess of 3.5 million sales in over 70 countries, including more than 1.4 million in Japan. In 2019, the "Vitz" nameplate was dropped in Japan due to faltering sales and the unification of the Toyota sales network there, and the vehicle was replaced by the XP210 series Yaris. Since 2023, the nameplate has been used for a rebadged third-generation Suzuki Celerio sold in Africa.
The hardware
Power comes from Petrol engine; 50 kW is the published figure; other versions carried different engines, listed in the specification table below. It weighs 810 –. Work it out per tonne and you get about 62 horsepower — unhurried — enough for the job, not for the bragging. It shifts through a 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 wheelbase is 2370 mm. These are manufacturer figures carried by Wikipedia and Wikidata, not road-test measurements.
Family and rivals
Its family tree is legible: it took over from the Toyota Starlet; its successor was 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; assembly was at Toyota, Aichi. Its contemporaries in the catalogue — the Chery A11, the Daihatsu Mira Gino, the Daihatsu Naked — show what else the money bought that year. Its Toyota stablemates include the Toyota Agya and the Toyota Calya.