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Toyota's uncertain Auris

19.06.13

With the new Auris – the second to bear that name – Toyota has worked itself up into a bit of a tizz over the bodywork. A lowered roof line, a pointier nose and a rear end which seems to be following John Sergeant’s on Strictly Come Dancing , going in all directions at once.

Every one of these devices is a cliché out of the design director’s standard litany and my guess is that most Auris buyers would swap all of them for a floor that is completely flat when the rear seats are folded (rather than the ledge that might make load-lugging a little awkward). They might also wish that some of the effort that had gone into jazzing up the exterior had been applied to the depressingly bleak and rudimentary interior. Or even, perhaps, into reducing the overall asking price.

An expensive (£20,000+) hybrid is on offer with Toyota’s whiny Constant Variable Transmission; but the far cheaper 1.4 litre D-4D diesel will actually cover more miles per gallon with emissions only 30 per cent higher than the hybrid’s congestion-charge-beating sub-90g/km. The 1.6 petrol version I sampled on the launch ticked all the dullness boxes but added some drawbacks, including a narcoleptic steering system and a whuffle of wind noise around the windscreen pillars.

Source: Telegraph.co.uk