Road test: Toyota Yaris

The first thing we notice is the quietly snazzy interior. Even in the mid-range SX model, it’s sleek, matte and all-black. There’s also that thing I’d call a ‘nice feel’, and which David at Toyota calls New Global Architecture. He tells me it’s a one-piece chassis and bodywork, for safer structure and better handling. I tell him that as a woman, I often find cars are not designed with me in mind. The Yaris, however, fits like a glove.

With a push of the start button, we’re off and heading up the West Tamar Highway, where there’s everything you want on a test drive – city traffic, highways and rural roads, with inevitable roadworks thrown in for good measure.

The first corner onto the highway is a sharp right angle. The Yaris takes it like a tiny dancer – neat and steady – and silky automatic transmission has us at 70km/h quick smart. As the River Tamar glints alongside us, I get comfortable with lane trace assist and speedlimit indicators on the compact screen between the speedos. Discreet but helpful, it is part of the Toyota Safety Sense suite now added to the Yaris as standard – measures that helped win it ‘safest car for under $30,000’ in RACV’s inaugural Safest Car Awards last year.

I’m told it also has software that detects likely collisions with other road users and even pedestrians, and radar cruise control.

So far, it feels like this little car is working very hard on my behalf, and doing it with style and aplomb.

I wouldn’t normally do my shopping during a test drive, but Muddy Creek Apples is just off the highway at Legana and multi-tasking is a hard habit to break. The Yaris makes light work of backing up to the shed, and even does a little off-roading in the orchard.