Toyota Urban Cruiser – South African pricing and model line-up

Toyota has officially unveiled its Urban Cruiser for the South African market, detailing the model line-up and local pricing.

The Toyota Urban Cruiser is a “compact crossover vehicle” which the company said is another product from its alliance with Suzuki.

It’s pitted against the increasingly-popular Hyundai Venue, Ford EcoSport, and its closest cousin the Suzuki Brezza – and Toyota has ambitious plans for it.

Initial forecasts state that Toyota expects to sell around 600 units per month.

The look and feel

The Urban Cruiser is designed as a fun, affordable compact crossover vehicle – which means it’s an economical, practical, and comfortable city commuter with the added benefit of raised ground clearance and robustness to tackle weekend adventures.

Think of the Urban Cruiser as a kind of smaller Fortuner.

It carries much of the same styling and features that have made it one of the country’s best-selling SUVs, and scaled them down into a package that is not much bigger than a hatchback.

With that being said, although it plays in the small car segment as a crossover, it’s a “big small” car.

It makes its go-anywhere pretensions known with a raised stance, textured side and wheel-arch mouldings and bumper guards, and short overhangs cutting a distinctive off-roader silhouette.

Up front, it gets LED projector headlamps, which are standard across the range.

Inside, the Urban Cruiser is every bit the Toyota you’ve come to expect – sensible ergonomics with modern finishes like a touchscreen infotainment system which is Android Auto and Apple CarPlay compatible.

The seats are then covered in black fabric and feature a honeycomb pattern, while the remainder of the interior is “finished off in hard-wearing black, featuring a textured pattern”.

Large door pockets, a glove compartment, and additional oddment binnacles provide additional storage space.

This is all part of Toyota’s aim to design a car that is “compact on the outside and spacious on the inside”.

To this end, the Urban Cruiser is 3,995mm long – while still being able to provide 328 litres of storage space. This can be extended with the seats folded down.

“A class-leading towing capacity of 400kg unbraked and 1,100kg braked ramps up the utility factor,” said Toyota.

Engine and safety

The Toyota Urban Cruiser is fitted with a 1.5-litre naturally-aspirated, four-cylinder petrol engine.

This delivers 77kW of power and 138Nm of torque, along with a fuel consumption figure of 6.2 litres per 100km and a top speed of 170km/h.

Buyers then have the option of a 5-speed manual transmission or 4-speed automatic system, available on certain models, while power is sent to the front wheels.

On the topic of the wheels, Toyota has fitted a “traditional McPherson strut” front suspension layout, with a “Torsion Beam design” in the rear.

The Urban Cruiser is then fitted with 16-inch wheels – steel versions on the entry-level model, and alloy rims for the higher-end models – which run either 205-60-R16 or 215-60-R16 tyres.

Additional features which are fitted on the range include: