The words ‘high-performance’ isn’t exactly the first words that come to mind when someone says Toyota Vios. The country’s best-selling sedan is better known for reliable daily transport, not excitement behind the wheel. Still, that hasn’t stopped Toyota from giving it a sportier image through the Vios Cup.
But now, there’s a new Vios, and that means new Vios racing cars to go along with it. It’s not yet available here, but over in Thailand, the car has been given its racing stripes.
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From the outside, it looks like a standard Vios, but there are several extrerior upgrades. For starters, it wears the Modellista body kit so it looks even lower to the ground. Of course, a a massive wing at the back is included for added downforce. Okay, we doubt it will be of great help on street circuits, but it will be of (some) help at higher-speed racetracks.
All the cup cars in Thailand use Lenso alloy wheels and grip is provided by Yokohama tires. The race cars also come with hood pins to prevent freak instances of the hood flinging open at high speeds. And, in case a driver ends up in the sand trap, their car can be hauled out through its tow straps.
Being a race car, the interior is totally stripped out. Even the sidings on the pillars and the roof were chucked out to shave off as much weight as possible. As it is, the Vios is a light car, tipping the scales at just a little over 1,000kg. We reckon the crash diet took out about 150kg worth of panels, plastics, and sound deadening. That said, it does have a beefy rollcage, but we doubt that it weighs as much as a fully-loaded Vios.
As for the engine, that’s most likely left untouched save for the exhaust system. In Thailand, the Vios (called the Yaris Ativ over there) uses a 1.2-liter engine that musters 92hp and 110Nm of torque. It’s no ball of fire but at least the weight shaving should make it more agile and a hair quicker than the stock model.
The new Toyota Vios has been on sale in our neighboring countries for quite some time now. The latest version of the subcompact sedan first appeared in Thailand, but it’s now offered in Malaysia, Cambodia, Laos, Indonesia, and even in the Middle East and Latin America.
We’re still wishing that it’s the Daihatsu-based model that gets sold in the Philippines instead of the facelifted version of the current model like in Vietnam. We’re keeping our fingers crossed that the all-new model gets launched here before the year ends.
