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The three weirdest things about the all-new 2015 Toyota Yaris

Yaris has a lot of unusual quirks. Here are the three that make it different from all other Toyotas.

The 2015 Toyota Yaris differs from other Toyota cars in some pretty obvious ways. It is a Toyota car, and it is not the sales leader in its category. That’s unusual. It also has a brand-new grill, but not the one that Corolla, Avalon, and Camry have switched to in their recent redesigns. Here at the three that stuck out at a recent media launch I attended.

The Yaris is Imported From France
First of all, Toyota doesn’t import many cars and trucks to the North American market anymore. In fact, it makes cars and trucks in the US and then exports them to other countries. That’s right. All that “made in ‘Murica” stuff has been turned on its head. If Toyota were making the Yaris in Japan, we would not be at all surprised. Many Lexus cars are still made there and brought to the US. But France? Why France? This makes about as much sense at Ford making its Transit Connect in Turkey or the Camaro being made in Canada.

One Humongous Wiper
The Yaris also has a strange windshield wiper. It is one huge, articulating arm that wipes the entire windshield. Mercedes and others have experimented with this. Ford likes to have them work backwards with the arms mounted out near the fenders, but the one huge arm is more than a little strange.

Dealer Installed Nav
You cannot buy a Yaris that has navigation. You can buy one from a dealer who will retrofit a navigation system into your Yaris though. My neighbor has a 1978 International Scout. It has dealer installed air conditioning. I believe that is the last time anyone in America was happy to hear about a dealer installed option. Clearly, Toyota expects many of its customers to be younger, phone savvy buyers that will use a free app instead of shelling out thousands for an options package. Maybe some of these weird new Toyota ideas aren’t so crazy.

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Comments

bob (not verified)    December 3, 2014 - 12:56AM

What? What is weird about the Camaro being built in Canada.
Transit Connect Built in Turkey. Maybe weird.
Yaris built in France. Weird.
Camaro being built in Canada. Not weird. GM had the room in a Canadian GM auto plant. What is weird is they moved the production to the USA just before the US dollar hit a new high to the Canadian dollar. Ouch.
The weirdest thing about the new Yaris is that brand-new grill. Maybe a French design?

Tim (not verified)    December 3, 2014 - 11:33AM

I'm interested in seeing what the windshield looks like on the Yaris. I have an '07 Yaris and feel like the two windshield wipers sometimes aren't even enough. Do you have video footage, or a picture?