Photo: Kleber Silva
Most people think that the Corolla is the entry-level Toyota in America. Despite them going to all the trouble of borrowing a subcompact car from Mazda, nobody really cares about the little Yaris.
We could drone on about how its 1.5-liter engine only makes about 100 horsepower or complain about some of the cheap-feeling plastics. But the car starts from around $15,000, so cut it some slack. No, the real problem has to be the segment the Yaris tried to occupy, which has always been unloved.
Small cars are just the smelly crap you rent when there's no other choice, and most people believe they'd be the laughingstock of the neighborhood in one. However, crossovers are an obvious exception to the rule. They all automakers to jack up not just the suspension, but also prices.
Toyota is the type of company that marches to its own beat. It ignores EVs because it believes hybrids are more sustainable, for example. And unlike many of its rivals, the Japanese company hasn't jumped onto the SUV/crossover bandwagon. Besides renewing the nameplates that are already household names like the RAV4 and Highlander, it's only really added the C-HR. Meanwhile, the Korean companies have three or sometimes four models of roughly the same size.
Should the Yaris ever be turned into a subcompact crossover, it might look a little like this. The rendering created by Kleber Silva combines the super-sporty front end of the Yaris hatchback from Europe and Japan with the body of the Mazda CX-3.
Why the Mazda? Well, the CX-3 is a jacked-up, slightly bigger version of the Mazda2, which in turn is sold as the Toyota Yaris in America. Obviously, this would overlap a little with the C-HR, which isn't that much bigger. But it could also be an interesting experiment to see if Toyota dealers can successfully sell two such cars at the same time.
Small cars are just the smelly crap you rent when there's no other choice, and most people believe they'd be the laughingstock of the neighborhood in one. However, crossovers are an obvious exception to the rule. They all automakers to jack up not just the suspension, but also prices.
Toyota is the type of company that marches to its own beat. It ignores EVs because it believes hybrids are more sustainable, for example. And unlike many of its rivals, the Japanese company hasn't jumped onto the SUV/crossover bandwagon. Besides renewing the nameplates that are already household names like the RAV4 and Highlander, it's only really added the C-HR. Meanwhile, the Korean companies have three or sometimes four models of roughly the same size.
Should the Yaris ever be turned into a subcompact crossover, it might look a little like this. The rendering created by Kleber Silva combines the super-sporty front end of the Yaris hatchback from Europe and Japan with the body of the Mazda CX-3.
Why the Mazda? Well, the CX-3 is a jacked-up, slightly bigger version of the Mazda2, which in turn is sold as the Toyota Yaris in America. Obviously, this would overlap a little with the C-HR, which isn't that much bigger. But it could also be an interesting experiment to see if Toyota dealers can successfully sell two such cars at the same time.
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