CROSS WITH PURPOSE (some text hidden) --NONE--

By Jonathan Crouch

Introductionword count: 46

Should your next (or first) small SUV be a hybrid - a proper self-charging petrol/electric one? Back in 2021, Toyota thought it should be and wheeled out this affordable, trendy Yaris Cross as its answer to segment customers. How does it fare as a used buy?

Modelsword count: 12

5 door SUV (1.5 Hybrid) [Icon, Design, Dynamic, Excel, GR Sport, GR]

Historyword count: 357

Back in 2021 with this Yaris Cross, Toyota at last had a credible truly class-competitive supermini-sized SUV. This little crossover filled an important gap in the company's Crossover line-up, just below the C-HR, and worried Juke and Puma sector rivals with features like AWD and full-Hybrid power that were relatively unusual in this segment. By 2021, there were so many supermini-based crossover SUVs now on the market that you would have been forgiven for wondering whether any new entrant to this segment could possibly bring anything fresh to it. Sure enough, Toyota's description of its contender, the Yaris Cross, didn't sound too promising in terms of innovation, this car aiming to offer 'the high riding qualities of an SUV but on a scale tailored to suit urban areas'. Just like any other Juke or Puma-sized small crossover then. Except that the Yaris Cross wasn't just another small SUV. You could have it with 4WD for a start which, believe it or not, was pretty revolutionary in this normally front driven-only sector. On top of that, for our market anyway, it came only with a full-Hybrid engine. Not a token gesture mild hybrid like you'd get in, say, that rival Ford Puma or, perhaps, a Suzuki Vitara or Kia Stonic from this period, but a full-fat petrol/electric powertrain that doesn't need plugging in but could run all-electrically some of the time. In this segment, only Hyundai, Honda and Renault could also offer that - and charged quite a lot more for it. In short, Toyota seemed to have produced something really appealing here, which wasn't the case the last time the company had properly entered this segment - with the ill-fated Urban Cruiser of 2009. With the Yaris Cross, launched in early 2021, the brand's European division was determined to get it right, this little Gallic-designed and French-built Crossover part of a family of Yaris models that already included a searing hot hatch and, of course, the popular hybrid supermini. This initial Yaris Cross sold in its original form until Summer 2024, when it was lightly updated. It's the 2021-2024-era pre-update models we're going to look at here.

What You Getword count: 532

Imagine a Yaris supermini with crossover pretensions and you might well be picturing something like a Yaris Cross, though this is more than just a version of Toyota's little hatch with a few SUV panels added. This Yaris Cross is actually 240mm longer and 20mm wider than its more familiar supermini Yaris showroom stablemate, sitting 95mm higher. And, we might add, looks better in the metal than it does on a screen. From the front, the look is distinct, this Cross model adopting a signature design feature for Toyota SUVs, the way the upper and lower grilles form two stacked trapezoidal shapes. The rear is defined by the wide tailgate emphasised by a full-width red reflector strip, above a square central section that's supposed to express the car's functionality. Take a seat behind the wheel and you've basically got a front-of-cabin experience lifted straight from the XP210-era Yaris supermini. The slightly raised driving position and airier interior feel though, make this seem more like a car in the class above, so it's appropriate that in most models, the 7-inch instrument binnacle screen is borrowed from a Corolla in the next segment up. It was all a product of Toyota's French design studio in Nice, but the stylists there weren't allowed to go further and create the jaunty, more expressive cabin design you might hope for in a car of this kind. At least connectivity took a step forward, or at least it did in top models that got the brand's 9-inch HD 'Toyota Smart Connect' central screen that included a built-in SIM card, over-the-air updates and connected cloud navigation. The older 8-inch monitor of lesser variants is less sophisticated, but still includes 'Apple CarPlay' and 'Android Auto' smartphone-connectivity and most of what you're likely to need. Storage provision is reasonable too, with both the door bins and the glovebox being of a decent size. In the rear, we were particularly impressed with headroom, though you might want to try before you buy in this regard if you find a car whose original owner embellished it with the optional Skyview panoramic roof. Otherwise though, a couple of six-footers would be fine in the back and if they needed to insert a child between them, that'd be OK, given the relatively small size of the central transmission tunnel. A powered hatch (which can work with a kick-action sensor) only features with top-spec trim. Once everything's raised, there's up to 397-litres of space available in a front-driven model, which is 111-litres more than you'd get in a Yaris supermini and a significant amount more than you get with this car's full-Hybrid rivals from this period in this class The big ticket item if you can stretch to top level of trim is Toyota's 'Smart Cargo' system, which isn't actually that smart - just a 60:40-split deckboard which permits part or all of the floor section to be lowered so that larger and taller items can be carried. Folding everything flat doesn't release the kind of space you'd find in obvious rivals - there's 1,097-litres of it in a front-driven model loaded to the roof. But that should be sufficient for the needs of most owners.

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