Toyota Vitz now SA’s cheapest car, gains safety kit and longer service plan

THE Toyota Vitz is a popular contender in South Africa’s budget hatch market and now the company is sweetening the deal further with a price reduction and additional safety features.

Toyota has quietly implemented these changes, as first reported by Cars.co.za, with the base model is now listed at R178,800, representing a reduction of R11,100 from its previous official retail price.

We say officially because technically, Toyota did offer a long-running promotion that saw it offered at R169,900 since August 2023.

The more generously appointed Vitz 1.0 XR manual now retails for R209,900, which is R10,000 less than before, while the AMT version is yours for R224,900, which represents a saving of R15,000. The previous ‘X-Cite’ variant, which featured in the middle of the price range, falls away with this latest upgrade.

The base-level Vitz 1.0 is officially South Africa’s cheapest new car, narrowly undercutting the Suzuki S-Presso 1.0 GL, which sells for R178,900, and interestingly the Vitz is also R10,100 less expensive than its virtually identical Suzuki Celerio twin.

Despite the low entry price, Toyota has actually bolstered its specification, with the addition of side and curtain airbags, upping the tally from two to six, while the service plan has been extended from two-years/30,000km to four-years/60,000km.

With Maruti Suzuki of India, which builds the Vitz and Celerio, now making six airbags standard across its line-up, it’s inevitable that the extra crash bags will also feature on the Celerio in the not too distant future.

As before, the Vitz is powered by a 1.0-litre normally aspirated petrol engine that produces 49kW and 89Nm, paired with either a five-speed manual or AMT (automated manual) transmission.

In terms of features, the Toyota Vitz 1.0 base comes with air conditioning, power steering, rear park distance control as well as the aforementioned six airbags and VSC stability control. The XR model comes with a touchscreen infotainment system with Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, as well as USB port, remote central locking, electric windows and 15-inch alloy wheels.

All models are sold with a three-year or 100,000km warranty.