The first Toyota Avensis is in many ways a true opposite of the cars that currently populate the sales rankings. The very modest middle class received an equally modest facelift in 2000, which nevertheless modernized its appearance considerably.
Nowadays, almost without exception, cars are self-confident types with cheeky or at least intended as such lines. Angles, folds, ‘black packs’, large wheels and LED lighting ensure that even a B-segmenter nowadays looks as if it would prefer to devour you with skin and hair. There is no longer a Toyota Avensis these days, but the last edition of this model was undeniably also affected by this fashionable brutality.
That has not always been the case, as we all know. At the turn of the century, cars were much more modestly formed. The pinnacle of that modesty came from Japan, which has consistently earned the Mazda pre-Zoomzoom and Toyota models of the 1990s the nickname ‘gray mouse’.
Modest
The first Avensis was such a gray mouse. The model succeeded the equally modest Carina E in 1997 and is officially regarded as a middle class, or a D-segmenter. To the eyes of today, however, this Passat rival comes across as a car in a class smaller and with the yardstick it actually is by today’s standards. The modest, narrow body makes no effort to make the car appear tougher than it is, but it does look neat, representative and tidy.
Three body styles
Is that boring then? You can argue about that. It is certainly not exciting, but it goes too far to say that the cars of the European competition were now so much more exciting in the late 1990s. In keeping with the customs of that time, Toyota supplied the Avensis as a sedan, as a liftback and as a station wagon, which went through life in Japan as Caldina.
clear glass
In 2000, Toyota thought it was time to modernize its understated midsize car. The shape of the headlights and grille was not compromised, but a late Avensis is quite easy to distinguish from an early one. For example, the headlights lost their dark housing and were fitted with clear glass, which had already been introduced by Honda ten years earlier. The brand logo moved from the bonnet to the grille, which except for the outer edges was stripped of its chrome.
The bumpers kept their black top, but got a different layout at the bottom. A flatter, tighter combination of air intakes and fog lights and a slightly higher mounted license plate make the Avensis just that little bit different here.
Red and yellow
At the rear, the light units are (of course) the most striking. The clusters, traditionally executed in red, white and orange, are dressed from 2000 in a combination of red and a striking yellowish orange, again using clear glass. The division is also tightened at the turn of the century, because the separation between the light segments is made from that moment on by straight lines.