- by Brian Byrne
Yaris, Verso, upgraded
Toyota Ireland MD Dave Shannon with the company's marketing director Steve Tormey, at the presentation of the upgraded Yaris and Verso last night.
27 May 2003: Toyota Ireland has introduced the upgraded Yaris for 2003, which incorporates a number of visible and under the skin improvements.
The exterior changes include a freshened treatment of the headlight clusters, new mesh-type grille coverings, a new bumper and sharper-styled lights clusters at the back, and a number of new colours.
The body structure has been reinforced at a number of points to further improve NVH characteristics.
Inside, the car features upgraded trim and fittings materials, while some revisions have been made to the design of the dashboard and there's a new steering wheel.
Three-door models have a front-seat 'memory' function that returns the seat to where it originally was after being moved to allow entry to the rear. There are now also three 3-point seatbelts in the rear.
Seat height adjustment of the driver's seat is now standard on all models.
In the drivetrain systems, a new 1.3-litre engine has been made available in the range, producing 87hp and more powerful and torquier than its predecessor. The other engines include the familiar 1-litre 65hp and 1.5-litre petrol 105hp units, with improved fuel economy.
There's also the 1.4-litre turbodiesel introduced last year.
Toyota has also introduced a new transmission, the Multi-mode Manual Transmission, an automated manual system which is said to be more economical than a similar manual box used with a clutch in the normal way.
©2003 irishcar.com