A bit of a mind bender eh? The answer is Laos, and this is their 2023 Toyota Vios that's just been introduced there. It's the first left-hand drive (LHD) version of the car, and also the first to officially wear the 'Vios' name – in Thailand where it made its global debut, it's sold as the Yaris Ativ.
Laos is also the second country to get the Honda City fighter in our ASEAN region. It's pretty well-specced as it is: there are LED headlights, LED tail lights with sequential indicators, and snazzy 16-inch wheels that aren't any different from those on the Thai-spec car.
Inside there's automatic air-conditioning, leather-plus-fabric seats, and a 9-inch touchscreen infotainment system with Apple CarPlay and Android Auto. It's worth noting the interior is beige too, different from the burgundy/black scheme of the Thai-market car.
The instrument cluster is a full-digital 7-inch item too, something that's not unlike whatever's fitted in Thailand, and in our 2022 Perodua Alza (D27A) and Ativa.
Safety-wise there's Toyota Safety Sense (TSS) bundled along with it, bringing these features:
Pre-Collision System
Lane Departure Alert
Front Departure Alert
Pedal Misoperation Control
Adaptive Cruise Control
Automatic High Beam
There's also blind spot monitors and rear cross traffic alert (BSM, RCTA), 6 airbags, and of course, the electric parking brake (EPB) with auto hold function.
And in a country where RON 95 is priced at an eye-watering RM 7.76 per litre...a relatively small engine is the way to go. Under the hood of this is a 1.3-litre naturally-aspirated mill, codenamed the 1NR-FE, which in the previous-gen car was quoted to return 4.5-litres/100 km.
We say previous car because no power figures were given yet, but if it's using the same engine from the outgoing model, then there's 99PS and 123 Nm to play with. Available transmissions are either a CVT-type automatic or a five-speed manual.
It's a pretty interesting package, and at least on paper it seems like it's more than a match for the relatively poorer-spec City in Laos. How those two will fare in Malaysia is a question we can only answer next year at the soonest – for now, the outgoing generation's still selling by the boatloads here.
That, and UMWT's is busy with the upcoming 2022 Toyota Veloz. Any minute now...right?
With humble beginnings collecting diecast models and spending hours virtually tuning dream cars on the computer, his love of cars has delightfully transformed into a career. Sanjay enjoys how the same passion for cars transcends boundaries and brings people together.
