New Toyota Urban Cruiser: More Suzuki than Toyota

It’s not what it seems

Do you remember the Toyota Urban Cruiser? That very early compact crossover-like? Now he has a new offspring. This is the new Toyota Urban Cruiser, although it’s not as new as you might think and it’s not quite a Toyota. What’s up with that?

Before the Renault Captur, Peugeot 2008 and even the Nissan Juke were in dealerships, you could already go to Toyota for a small car like a crossover in the Netherlands. In 2008, Toyota presented the Urban Cruiser to the European public, a small crossover combined with Yaris technology, which had already appeared on the market a year earlier in its home country of Japan as the Toyota Ist and which was sold in the United States by Toyota’s ‘. youth brand’ Scion. if xD was sold. The Urban Cruiser lasted in the Netherlands until 2014 and was not given a direct successor. The Urban Cruiser model name was also lost elsewhere in the world, but not completely. In fact, now there is a new one.

Toyota Urban Cruiser (2009-2014).

In 2020, it became clear that Toyota would release the Urban Cruiser model name from the moths for a new compact crossover that appeared in 2021. That Urban Cruiser was actually not Toyota at all. The car meant for the Indian market was a facelifted Vitara Brezza from Maruti Suzuki. The modified Suzuki didn’t last long. Vitara Brezza was upgraded and is now called Brezza and the Toyota derivative disappeared. But something took its place. Suzuki released the Grand Vitara hatchback in 2022 and Toyota got a slightly larger SUV-like version: the Urban Cruiser Hyryder. Now it finds its way to South Africa and loses the Hyryder part of its brand name along the way.

This Urban Cruiser based on the Vitara Brezza was only around for a short time.

The Toyota Urban Cruiser is yet another result of the close collaboration between Suzuki and Toyota. In addition, he shows to the fans of the curiosity of cars with a very small fact how the names of models can differ from market to market. Why is ‘Hyryder’ not used in South Africa? This is possible due to the fact that the Urban Cruiser – unlike in India – is not available with a hybrid powertrain. The hybrid equipment comes from Toyota itself, while the other parts of the Urban Cruiser Hyryder and Grand Vitara are all Suzuki. In South Africa, the Toyota Urban Cruiser always has 105 hp and 138 Nm with a powerful turboless 1.5. The heart of the Suzuki, which can be combined with a five-speed manual gearbox and a four-speed automatic transmission.

Other examples of cars that go through life like Suzuki and Toyota are the popular Suzuki Across and Swace, the Toyota RAV4 series and the Corolla Touring Sports. Suzuki Baleno is available as Toyota Glanza and Starlet and Toyota Belta as Suzuki Ciaz. More examples? Indeed. Do you know Suzuki’s Landy? That is, in fact, Toyota Noah. The new Suzuki Celerio is re-marketed by Toyota as the Vitz.

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Amani