I may have a weird fetish for small, simple cars, but I rarely remember the Yaris iA, which is basically a Mazda2 sedan with some Toyota badging. We didn’t get the new 2 in the United States, but we got Toyota’s version. This one has a manual, which is excellent. But what do you want to know about it?
[Full disclosure: Toyota wanted me to drive the Yaris iA so badly that they dropped one off at my house with a full tank of gas.]
Look, other Jalopnik staffers have other, heavier, more expensive cars to review this week, but I’m pretty sure I’ve got the best one. There are three pedals. It’s red. It has a wee little trunk-let that’s actually proportional to the rest of the car. I can cram it into dinky parking spots with ease. It’s such a happy little car!
Sadly, there’s no real carbon fiber to be had, but there is plenty of fake carbon fiber printed plastic. It also comes with Mazda’s signature dashboard tombstone for an infotainment screen, which is aesthetically unappealing but it sort of does the job. Eh. We’ll see. Let’s not talk about the catfish mouth, either. It’s too fun to drive to really spend too long looking at the front end.
I didn’t expect to like this car, but how can I not? It has 106 horsepower to the front wheels in a manual car that only weighs around 2,400 lbs. It only costs $16,815 including delivery processing and handling fees. Sure, that’s as much as a handful of sort of working Porsche 914s off Craigslist, but look at it. This is extremely my fetish.
But let’s not make this about me. I’m here to drive the cars for you wonderful people. What questions do you have about the 2017 Yaris iA? Toss them in the comments below and I’ll try to dig up the answers before I sadly have to give the car back.