2014 Toyota Aygo first drive

The Toyota Aygo – in retail form, and in the UK. It’s been all pre-production drives abroad before this, and while there’ll be a full road test examination in short order, this initial car – one of the few in the country – earns another first look.

Much about it we have learnt before. This is a marginally bigger follow-up to Toyota’s popular city dweller which has been on sale since before Twitter was born. It continues to share a platform with PSA Peugeot Citroën, although aside from the rear passenger door and the angle of the windscreen, not a single body panel is the same.

The Aygo is differentiated even more clearly by the x-graphic on the nose; as brazen a love-or-hate feature as it’s possible to imagine. The shape, of course, is largely incidental – the point is that you can swap out the inserts (quickly, via a dealer) for new ones, thereby personalising your car. Given that there are currently only three colours to choose from, your options are somewhat limited, but you get where Toyota is going.

Its thinking continues inside, where a more uniform architecture can be similarly customised with two levels of interior pack that swap out much of the glossy dashboard plastic (in as little as seven minutes, we’re told). If that weren’t enough, you can also have the distinctive double-bubble roof in a contrast coloured decal.

All of that’s on the option list; as standard in the UK, both the 3 and 5-door Aygo come in three grades: x, x-play and x-pression, with two special editions: x-cite and x-clusiv. As ever, the mid-spec trim will be the seller, but the DAB-equipped, alloy wheeled and x-touch media carrying x-pression looks tempting despite a sizable premium.

The x-clusiv driven here is only a few hundred pounds more than that and largely adds styling enhancements to justify its short price hop. There’s currently only one engine to choose from; the three-cylinder 1.0-litre VVT-i carried over from the previous Toyota Aygo, albeit in revised format. A five-speed manual gearbox is standard, with Toyota’s automated manual X-shift a £700 option.

Our yardstick for city cars has moved up a notch or two since the introduction of the impeccably mannered VW Up, but the core credentials remain unchanged: about town convenience, a bit of sprightliness beyond and moderate motorway ability. The Aygo pretty much nails all three. Light control surfaces, its small size, tight turning circle and good visibility make the Toyota a natural urbanite - much as its predecessor was.

In the wider world, the news is better still. Thanks to additional spot welds and a higher use of high-tensile steel, this is a stiffer, lighter Aygo – and it shows. The ride is busy, but very well-judged and rarely seems overloaded; meaning that there’s plenty of play to accommodate some mid-bend surface turbulence even when cornering. The result, when combined with decent grip levels and an even-tempered front end, is a city car that can happily be driven with vigour.

The engine is somewhat less of an attribute. Near the beginning of the Aygo’s life cycle the 1.0-litre unit was an award-winner; now, even tweaked for slightly more power and still better efficiency, it feels off the current three-pot pace. The engineers have reorganised the gearing for a bit more low-range perkiness, and this helps, but there’s a noticeable mid-range flat spot to go with a predictably limited amount of gusto.