It looks like some markets might get a mild facelift to the Toyota Yaris. According to patents leaked from Argentina, Toyota will be giving this budget 5-door hatchback a new front bumper. Compared to the current design, the lower grille section has been flipped over. It currently sports a sort of ‘V’ shape, whereas the patent images show an ‘A’ shaped lower half.
It appears other elements will be facelifted as well. The headlights appear to sport a new internal design, perhaps with LEDs will be used intead of projector halogens this time. The LED daytime running lights also have disappeared from under the headlights. This might indicate that they’ve been integrated into the headlamp cluster instead. The upper grille has also been modified slightly to better integrate into hte headlight clusters. The lower half of the grille seems to have a hexagonal pattern to it, but closeups were not available.
The foglight housing and garnish on the bumper has also been redesigned. The new design looks more purposeful and angular. It’s welcome change and we hope UMW Toyota Malaysia integrates this new face into the CKD model. However, given that they only just launched the locally-assembled Yaris in Malaysia last year, it’s unlikely any change will come soon.
On the other hand, the Yaris appears unchanged from all other angles. Perhaps this small change will be something that can be introduced at a reasonable cost to Bukit Raja in time to fight off any updates to the Jazz, City, or Almera.
Toyota’s approach to the Yaris
Instead of creating a global car called the Yaris, Toyota decided to use the Yaris name for at least three very different cars. In the United States, the Yaris is a rebadged Mazda 2. In Japan and Europe, the Yaris is a totally different car that’s based on the TNGA-B platform. While in many developing markets, including Malaysia, the Yaris is based on a shared platform with the Vios. This XP150 Yaris is what we get here so it’s the one we’re most concerned with.
