Toyota has spent the past decade in a kind of lockdown syndrome. Locked into churning out dreary, unimaginative cost-locked cars with little to no personality or charisma, be it dynamically or visually. Ironically that kind of approach sells and Toyota sold millions of cars using such a philosophy. The bland and sell business model allowed Toyota to become the biggest car manufacturer in the world, by volume. But as a famous philosopher once said, “size matters not”. as usual, Yoda was right. Size means little if it doesn’t count for something. It seems Toyota has been listening because they have decided to end production of the blandest minicar ever made. The Toyota Aygo.

In its place will be the Toyota Aygo X. And if the Aygo X Prologue Concept is the inspiration for the new model then good times will be had for Toyota. But concepts serve as an appetite before the main meal. And far too often the Toyota main meal is served cold. Often without a plater. Or a side dish. Or napkin. Nevertheless, the Aygo X will be a compact SUV for people who don’t know the difference between a car or an SUV.

Toyota will build the Aygo X at its manufacturing facility in Kolin, the Czech Republic. The facility was utilized to form a joint venture with the PSA Group which produced the Peugeot 108 and Citroen C1 alongside the Aygo. That partnership ended when the PSA Group rebranded into the giant Stellantis entity, Toyota quickly purchased the Kolin site as a hub for future European manufacturing.

The Aygo X will become a rival for the Nissan Juke compact SUV, becoming a European-designed and manufactured vehicle because Europeans don’t like the idea of buying Japanese-made cars. Toyota’s current powertrains and PHEV technology will likely be carried over and possibly tweaked to enhance performance, efficiency and sustainability.

Toyota sells about 1M cars annually in Europe and is predicting to boost sales to 1.5M by 2025 based on demand profiles for it’s growing range of SUVs.