2008 Toyota Yaris

Editor: New Car Test Drive
Superb subcompacts for affordable transportation.

Walk Around

The Toyota Yaris has an appealing look to it, especially the liftback.

The liftback was designed around the theme of "powerful simplicity," but our first impression was that it's cute as the proverbial bug. It has character, with its wedgy profile, large front halogen headlamp clusters, creased hood lines and T-grille. Almost every exterior element is body-colored, but it avoids looking like a featureless blob due to strategic placement of black trim around the base of the A-pillar, on the B-pillar, on the two strips that run the length of the roof, the front grilles and foglamp surrounds, and at the base of the windshield.

The rear hatch opens down to the bumper line and raises just high enough to allow a six-foot-tall person to stand under it. Like everything else about the Yaris, the hatch's function feels just right. Opening of the hatch is well damped by two struts, and closing it takes no more than a gentle downward push.

The sedan's theme is "Simple is Cool," which is based on the Japanese art of flower arranging, where unnecessary decoration is shunned in place of a single, simple design. It's significantly longer than the liftback, by 3.5 inches in wheelbase and a whopping 19 inches overall. Its long, stretched cabin, arched beltline and short overhangs give it sporty proportions, and the multi-reflector halogen headlights lend it a premium look. Longer and wider and riding on a much longer wheelbase than the Echo sedan it replaces, the Yaris sedan has proportions that work together to create a sportier car.

Despite their distinctive styling, both the sedan and liftback share a 0.29 coefficient of drag, an excellent number that helps quiet the ride and increase fuel economy at cruising speeds.

The standard running gear consists of P175/65R14 radials on 14-inch steel wheels, and the brakes are front ventilated discs and rear drums. The suspension is independent in front, with a semi-independent torsion beam in the rear.

Interior

The Yaris is a marvel of space efficiency with clever cockpit packaging. Its relatively long wheelbase (the longest in its class) makes the Yaris cockpit feel quite spacious, especially in the liftback with its tall, extended roofline. Legroom isn't quite as generous as headroom, though six-footers can occupy every seat except the center rear without complaint.

The standard fabric upholstery is classy looking, durable and provides good grip in the corners. The black upholstery studded with blue dots that came in one of our test cars was especially handsome. The front seats have supportive, deeply dished backs; but the bottom cushions are flat and short, so long-legged drivers may not enjoy optimum comfort and lower-body support. The seating position is nicely upright and allows excellent forward sightlines, but it feels awkward relative to the steering wheel. The wheel adjusts for rake but not for reach, so it's necessary to pull the seat fairly far forward to assume the proper 10 and 2 o'clock hand placement, and this results in a position that's more like sitting in a chair at the dining table, legs bent at 90 degrees, than the other extreme, laying down in a sports racing car. The sedan's front seats do feature a height adjustment, which helps the driver find a more comfortable position. And the sedan's longer wheelbase provides about another 2 inches of legroom front and rear.

Access to the liftback's rear seat is provided by a walk-in lever in the shoulder area of the front passenger seat. There is no such lever on the driver's side. The rear seats in the sedan and liftback are adequate to the task of hauling passengers over short distances, but the liftback offers the advantage of a recline feature that increases the seatback angle from 10 degrees to 28 degrees. A 60/40 split seat with 5.9 inches of fore and aft adjustability is also available, greatly increasing the liftback's comfort and practicality. A pair of levers on the shoulder of the seatback make the operation a snap. The sedan's rear seating can also be ordered in a 60/40 split configuration, but there is no recline feature.

Cargo space in the liftback with the seats upright is 9.5 cubic feet, or 25.7 cubic feet with the seats folded down. The sedan's cargo volume is 12.9 cubic feet with the standard rear seat and 13.7 behind the 60/40 folding seats. Folding the sedan's seats adds volume. The wide rear openings, which extend down to bumper level, make the task of loading and unloading the Yaris easier.

Just as the two Yaris models differ in exterior styling, the instrument panels for the liftback and sedan are distinctive. Each features a center-mounted gauge cluster and an overall simplicity of design. The sedan's IP looks a bit more upscale with its dual-toned trim and Optitron illuminated gauge cluster, which includes a 120-mph speedometer, fuel gauge, odometer/trip meter and various warning graphics. Manual-shift sedans, S-model liftbacks, and automatic sedans with the Power Package add a tachometer. Outboard cupholders are standard on all models.

The center console differs in style between the two models, but the stereo and air conditioning functions are, in typical Toyota fashion, equally easy to view and use. Turn signals and lights are operated by the left-side steering column-mounted stalk; the right stalk is for the front wipers (plus a rear wiper in the liftback). Storage bins abound, on either side of the center stack and along the doors, although liftbacks have three gloveboxes to the sedan's one. For those cars equipped with the MP3 stereo, the center console includes an auxiliary input.

Overall, the interior is comfy, the trim and upholstery appear classy, and the controls are intuitive. There would be no shame in taking the boss out to lunch or your mother-in-law to the opera in a Yaris.