Once Japan’s No.1 selling car, the Honda Jazz (sold as Fit in Japan) is now languishing in Japan’s sales charts. On certain months, it even bumped off the top-5 list, which is now dominated by Toyota.

The new TNGA platform Toyota Yaris (not available outside of Australia, Europe, Japan) is now the No.1 selling car in Japan, followed by the Toyota Raize (twin of Daihatsu Rocky, donor car for upcoming Perodua D55L), Corolla, and Harrier. In certain months, the even the Toyota Alphard sells more than the Honda Jazz.

The reversal of fortunes is quite a rude shock to Honda Motor. Historically, the Honda Jazz typically outsells the Toyota Vitz, as the Yaris was previously known as in Japan.

For this all-new TNGA platform model however, Toyota has decided to dump the two decades old Vitz nameplate in favour of the international Yaris nameplate.

The all-new Toyota Yaris was launched in the same month as the all-new Honda Jazz, in February 2020. Since then, the Yaris just bolted ahead like a hare on fire.

As of October 2020, cumulative sales of the Toyota Yaris stood at 162,776 units, versus 82,588 for the Honda Jazz.

According to Japan’s Mag-X, Honda is rushing out a facelift for the Jazz. Apparently, market research shows that the grille-less front-end design is not winning as many fans as Honda had hoped.

In Japan, the Jazz (Fit) is sold in five variants – Fit Home, Fit Crosstar, Fit Luxe, Fit Ness, and Fit Basic. Of the five, only the Fit Crosstar gets a grille. The rest get a floating effect body-coloured panel to give it a very flushed look.

Replacing the front-end is not difficult as Honda already offers a variation of the Jazz’s front-end design in China, where the Jazz is sold with a more conventional looking grille.

The TNGA (GA-B) platform Toyota Yaris is quite an overachiever but don’t expect it to be sold here. It rides on a very high cost TNGA platform, and is a lot smaller than our South East Asian Yaris. In our part of the world, size still matters consumers don’t like paying more money for less metal.

The Japanese/European market Yaris is actually smaller than even a Proton Iriz! Meanwhile, our South East Asian market Toyota Yaris is the biggest in its class, longer than even a Honda Jazz, but curiously its interior space doesn’t even come close to the smaller Honda Jazz.

Still, the Yaris is the No.1 selling B-segment hatchback not just in Malaysia, but also in Thailand, Indonesia, and the Philippines.

In Japan, the Yaris is offered in three powertrain combinations:

• 1.0-litre naturally aspirated 3-cylinder (1KR-FE, Toyota’s designation for the 1.0L Axia and Bezza’s 1KR-VE engine) paired to a CVT,
• 1.5-litre naturally aspirated 3-cylinder Dynamic Force M15A-FK5 paired to either a 6-speed manual (yes!) or a Direct Shift CVT (with start-up clutch)
• 1.5-litre naturally aspirated 3-cylinder Dynamic Force M15A-FXE hybrid paired to an E-CVT