Toyota Yaris coming to Malaysia locally assembled

Toyota’s latest-generation Yaris is about to be local assembled in UMW Toyota’s new factory in Bukit Raja. The last time UMW Toyota brought this hatchback to Malaysia it did not sell well as it was imported from Thailand and so its selling price at the time was as much as RM18,000 more than the local assembled best selling Honda Jazz.

Now the Malaysia B-segment hatchback is super popular with new Honda Jazz sales taking top honors with VW’s last generation Polo coming in second and Ford’s outgoing Fiesta taking in some sales.

Hoping to finally get a bigger slice of that action, UWM Toyota will now be playing its B-segment hatch game with this local assembled Yaris.

This “new” Yaris, which will make its debut at the beginning of next year (2019) will be more like a facelifted version of the Asian-market Yaris that was introduced in Thailand in 2013 with success, and looking very much like a baby Auris. This Yaris is somewhat larger than the global model with length increasing by 165mm. It’s also lower and wider than the model it replaces, while boot space grows from 286 litres to 310.

Under the hood we are guessing the popular 1.5-litre normally aspirated VVT-i petrol engine that delivers 79kW and 140Nm. It will be mated to a CVT continuously variable transmission. Prices are still pending and we are again guessing a price from RM75,000 to RM84,000.