Toyota comes with a completely new Urban Cruiser. This car, which disappeared from the market in the Netherlands in 2014, will finally get a successor.
It is sometimes said that Toyota was or is relatively late with the delivery of a compact crossover, but in fact that is not entirely correct. In fact, in 2008 – two years before the introduction of the Nissan Juke – Toyota launched the Urban Cruiser, partly based on the then current Toyota Yaris compact SUV with which Toyota was actually ahead of its competitors. In about four years, Toyota sold only 2,225 copies in the Netherlands, which unfortunately never made it a success for Toyota. Later this year, however, Toyota is just reviving the Urban Cruiser model name!
Now let’s give it away: the Urban Cruiser that Toyota is still presenting this year, will only be available on the Indian market for the time being. In fact, it is not a Toyota at all. The new Urban Cruiser is the next cross-pollination between Toyota and Suzuki. In India, Toyota already sells the Glanza, nothing more than a Suzuki Baleno with Toyota logos, and in Europe, Suzuki will soon be launching the Across on the market. That Across is in turn a Toyota RAV4 with a slightly modified nose. The soon to be brand new Urban Cruiser shares its basis with the Suzuki Vitara, but not with the Vitara as we know it.
No, under the carriage of the new Urban Cruiser, a picture of which shows all its contours, hides the Suzuki Vitara Brezza. The Vitara Brezza is the little brother of ‘our’ Vitara, developed by the Indian branch of Suzuki, Maruti Suzuki. The Vitara Brezza is on the same platform as the Vitara we know and even has the same wheelbase of 2.5 meters. With its car length of just under 4 meters due to tax advantages, the Vitara Brezza is a lot shorter than the 4.18-meter Vitara that you can buy here. Visually, the Urban Cruiser will hardly deviate from its Suzuki brother. In any case, the car gets a slightly different look, but we have probably had almost all external differences.
As said, the Urban Cruiser will most likely not come to the Netherlands. With the planned Yaris Cross in mind, that does not seem too great a loss to us.