The All New Toyota Yaris

The all new Toyota Yaris if a big move forward and takes the model to new levels of sophistication. The Yaris was a great car when it was first launched, in fact it was revolutionary, but over the years it has become just a little tired.

Attempts to revive the early excitement with a new model launched in 2005 worked initially but sales have been declining steadily since 2007.

However the new Yaris is just a little different. Certainly it has stunning looks. There are three and five door models, a number of levels of trim and four engine options. These include a 69 bhp 1.0 litre petrol, a 99 bhp 1.33 litre petrol which is also available as Multidrive S automatic, and a 1.4 litre diesel unit which delivers a huge 72.4 mpg and just 104g/km CO2.

Internally the new Yaris looks stunning. It features an entirely fresh design and even in the most basic trim level it is packed with equipment. You will love the new sporty looking steering wheel and the overall ergonomics of the revised layout.

This car is especially one to watch out for Car Insurance For Young Drivers

The All New Yaris

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Coming Soon – The Toyota GT 86

Certainly the Toyota GT 86 is a striking looking car. It has aggressive aerodynamic styling, and with its 17 inch alloy wheels it certainly looks very sporty and this is aided by its sharp looking rear spoiler and its daylight running LED lights. There is also a dual pipe exhaust system and has chrome plated end pipes.

Inside the good looks continue to impress. It is very comfortable and for one there is a good driving position which does not take an age to find. The internals are if anything understated with the central tachometer surrounded by additional dials. The pedals are of lightweight aluminium construction which along with the small diameter sports steering wheel adds even further to the cars overall sporty image.

For a four seater sports model it is quite compact which is great when you are driving in town. The centre of gravity is quite low, which adds to the car’s excellent handling characteristics; it is light and very nimble.

The GT is powered by a four litre petrol engine that develops a generous 197 bhp.

The car will become available in the UK in June 2012 and the price is expected to be around £25,000. It was developed by a Toyota Subaru partnership and in Japa it is called the Hachiroku.

From a practicality point of view, this car is not very practical. Although there are four seats, the rear ones are suitable only for children. However this is an excellent little sports coupe and a great deal of fun. It looks great and it will be great to get behind the wheel of one.

The Toyota GT 86

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Toyota Prius PHV Plug-In

You can now order the Toyota Prius PHV, which is the first plug-in hybrid car that the company has produced. Toyota believes that this is the way forward and that it will be more popular than cars powered entirely by batteries. Surprisingly the PHV will cost less than the Nissan Leaf, a wholly battery powered car. Targeted sales volumes are 60,000 pa world wide and the first European models will be available in Europe from June 2012 at a price of around €37,000.

The PHV differs from the conventional Prius in that there are more batteries, which are of the high capacity lithium-ion type, and that they can be charged from a standard electricity socket in 90 minutes. The batteries have been developed and will be built by Panasonic.

Where a plug-in hybrid scores over a pure electric vehicle is that it doesn’t engender ‘range-anxiety’, a constant problem of many electric vehicle owners which tend to have a maximum range of around 100 miles.

Naturally the range of the PHV is less than this just using the electric motor (it is only around 16.5 miles) but the total range is around 620 miles. Around 600 of these cars have been trialled successfully in Europe, Japan and the USA and they have received many plaudits. One user was able to drive 249 km using just one litre of petrol by recharging it after each journey.

More Toyota plug-in cars are on their way including hybrids and all-electric vehicles. In total 3.4 million Prius cars have been sold since their launch.

Competition is expected from General Motors planned introduction of the more expensive Volt plug-in hybrid which uses new technology for extending the range, though its launch has been delayed due to safety concerns regarding the tendency of its batteries to catch fire.

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The Toyota Avensis

The current model of the Avensis was launched in 2009 and the current price range is from around £18,500 to £27,300 and is fairly upmarket and not too far away from the somewhat more prestigious BMW 3 Series and the Audi A4. The latest Ford Mondeo is somewhere in that mix too. If you are willing to put aside the prestige of the BMW and Audi brands, then the Avensis provides a similar amount of car for a few dollars less.

The looks of the new Avensis are generally more sophisticated than the model it replaced and inside the quality is as high as you might anticipate from a high end Japanese car; it is equally as good as the BMW.

The entry level engine is a 1.6 litre petrol unit which develops 130 bhp and although a little sluggish is very economical with an average fuel consumption of 44 mpg. There are also 1.8 litre and 2.0 litre petrol engines which up the bhp and acceleration a bit, but they remain far from spectacular.

There are some good diesel engines available including a 2.2 litre turbo diesel with 175 bhp and a spritely performance with excellent torque right through the rev range. There are smaller diesel units too, and the most economical of these, the 124 bhp 2.0 litre, delivers a fuel economy of 55 mpg.

This is a great motorway car and ideal for a family and for the businessman who covers high motorway miles. On country roads it is not the best in terms of handling characteristics but it is quite obedient and very comfortable.

Equipment levels are quite high and there is generally a high quality feel to the car. It won’t set the world on fire, but for general all-round motoring it is a stylish answer.

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5 Celebrity Porsche owners

Hell’s Kitchen star Jean-Christophe Novelli has recently sold his beautiful used Porsche Cayenne. According to the New York Times Novelli is the sexiest chef in the world (fingers down throat) but quite honestly his Porsche is in our opinion considerably sexier. In fact it is the Cayenne Turbo S which has a 4.5 litre V8 turbocharged engine and develops 444 bhp; nice motor Jean-Christophe.

Cristiano Ronaldo likes his Porsche Panamera very much, but who wouldn’t? It is a special model that has been tuned by Oakley Design. It was handed to him at a special ceremony in Marbella, Spain. The car has a V8 twin-turbo engine and develops 580 bhp, which is 80 bhp more than the standard model. Top speed is 205 mph and it reaches 60 mph from rest in just 3.7 seconds. Good luck to you Cristiano.

Eric ‘Slowhand’ Clapton sold his Porsche – he was probably getting just a little too old for it, though perhaps not because it was a Porsche Cayenne Turbo, in other words an old man’s Porsche. We will never understand why Porsche made the Cayenne, it is so un-Porsche like even though it does develop 500 bhp and has a top speed of 171 mph. He got £28,000 for it. See you in heaven Eric.

Lewis Hamilton’s father owned a rather spectacular purple Porsche. It is a Porsche Carrera GT Convertible and it is said to have cost him £330,000. Unfortunately he made a bit of a mess of it when it came off the road in Hertfordshire. He lost control and drove through a hedge. It was the first crash that he had had in 30 years and fortunately nobody was injured. Now we see where Lewis gets it from.

Victoria Beckham had a brief affair with a Porsche 911. It was white and the wheel hubs bore her initials VB. She paid £100,000 for it but as it was only being used as a run-about for shopping that was OK; the problem was though that she found there was insufficient space in the trunk (she says ‘trunk’ rather than ‘boot’ nowadays). Never mind, she will have to borrow one of David’s cars, he has £2 million worth of them including a Ferrari F430.

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5 celebrity Aston Martin owners

The Aston Martin has a rich celebrity heritage; it has even been a star in its own right as James Bond’s regular choice of motor. Sean Connery was probably the man responsible for its silver screen infamy as he was the first Bond to drive an Aston Martin. It has since attained iconic status as a typically British brand. Due to its prestige status it is bound to have celebrity owners aplenty. Its expensive price tag makes it the reserve of the A-list.

One celebrity owner is appropriately Hugh Grant, the man held up by the Americans to be the quintessential English gent. It seems apt that Grant would own the iconic British car. He chose the Aston Martin Vanquish which is a large performance car.

Prince Andrew owns a V8 Virage Volante and his brother Prince Charles drives a similar mark. It is a regular amongst the British nobility and obviously a natural choice for royalty as a display of patriotism.
It seems to be a sports star favourite Jimmy White being the proud owner of a DB9 and Rafa Nadal owning a DBS. This demonstrates it’s wide ranging appeal from the aristocracy to the sports star. The Aston Martin is a car to aspire to.

The Aston Martin reinforced its place as an iconic British brand at the recent royal wedding. After the ceremony, William drove Kate away in a DB6 mkII. This car was a gift to Charles on his 21st birthday. This car could now vie with Sean Connery’s Aston as the most famous Aston Martin in existence.

Elle Macpherson, Alex Curran, Katharine McPhee, Courtney Love and Denise Richards prove that the car is popular amongst a female clientele. The Aston Martin is not as masculine as maybe the Ferrari or the Lamborghini. It exudes a civilised aura and oozes class.

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Toyota News

The new Toyota Prius Plug-in is due to be released in early 2012. The price could be around £30,000 but this is offset by the Governments Ultra-Low Carbon grant scheme which will pay up to £5,000. This Prius is not just rigidly an electric vehicle. It uses a powertrain which is a harmony of petrol engine, battery and electric motor.

Fourteen miles plus can be covered electrically. After this the vehicle will switch to the full hybrid mode. This means the driver does not need to be constantly aware of how much range is left on the battery making the Prius a much more user friendly option than many of the out and out electric motors. Also where many small electric cars can take hours to charge, the Prius can take a full charge in an hour and a half.

Due to the powertrain system, fuel economy reaches a phenomenal 134.5mpg combined. This certainly counteracts soaring fuel prices and goes some way to repaying the expensive price tag.
The seven seat Prius+ was unveiled at the same time at the Frankfurt motor show. It is the first seven seat vehicle of its kind.

Depreciation figures for the new Toyota Yaris have shown that it is set to retain its value very well. It will keep up to 42 per cent of its original value after three years (based on 10,000 miles per year).
Toyota is set to install solar panels worth £10million at their Derbyshire plant. This will mean around 17,000 solar panels on an area the size of four and a half football pitches. They will provide enough energy to build approximately 7,000 cars per year.

With this ambitious project and the new Prius out next year, Toyota has demonstrated its credentials as a green manufacturer without many equals.

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Top 5 Car Insurance Companies

With the internet now at the heart of your search for the cheapest car insurance quotes it is important to know which sites offer the cheapest deals. With results based on comprehensive cover with the addition of legal protection the following sites feature in the top five…

Endsleigh – They will search around fifty of the top insurers and find you a quote from their panel. They are consistently market leaders in low cost cover for all ages. They can offer breakdown, personal accident and legal cover.

4YoungDrivers.com features highly due to its favourable rates for 18 to 30 year olds. This is a market that is often discriminated against and seen as high risk. The savings young drivers can make here are highly favourable.

Yes Car Insurance has a panel of more than twenty leading insurers from which they find the best car insurance quotes for you.

Nationwide Motor Insurance can offer up to a 75 per cent no claims discount, a UK based call centre, and cover for up to 180 days when travelling in EU countries.

RAC – Their panel of approved insurers can offer you a competitive deal. This can include 10 per cent discount for RAC members. They reduce breakdown cover by 50 per cent when you sign up for a policy with them.

Getting car insurance quotes used to be much more daunting in the knowledge that only a handful of companies were available to offer you a policy. This all changed with the internet taking over your search. There is a multitude of companies out there now all with unique specialisations and finding the right policy for you is now much easier. With a number of car insurance quotes at your disposal you can pick and choose which one offers you all round best value.

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Best-Selling Toyotas

The best selling car in the world was the Toyota Corolla and during the models lifetime a massive 35,000,000 of them were sold. Here we will take a nostalgic look at the last Corolla model to leave the production line, review some of the currently best selling Toyotas, and ask if Toyota will ever again sell the World’s most poplar car.

Why was the world best selling car the Toyota Corolla? The answer is simple. It was not because the car was beautiful (anything but) or a top performer (hardly) or in any way charismatic (no charisma at all). It was simply because the Toyota Corolla was the world’s most reliable car, and one of the reasons for that is that it was very simple. Any skilled mechanic anywhere in the world was able to service it and no special equipment was required. Corolla means little crown; it was aptly named.

The Toyota Yaris is the brands most popular small cars. It was launched in 1999 and it was an immediate success and generated considerable excitement. Quite revolutionary in design it became a hot seller all over the world. A new model was launched in 2005 but its sales peaked in 2007 and have been gradually falling off, however a new model has recently been launched and this gives every indication of being a blazing hit; many claim that the Yaris is now the best car in its class.

The most popular hybrid car in the world is the Toyota Prius. This car is now in its third generation and although it has very similar looks to the previous models it has considerably advanced in terms of technology. As before it has a petrol engine plus an electric motor (though the petrol ending has been increased from 1.5 litres to 1.8 litres) but its performance far exceeds that of its predecessors. The car is capable of delivering 134 bhp and has a 0 to 62 mph acceleration time of 10.4 seconds.

If the car in front is a hybrid, then the car in front is certainly a Toyota.

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Toyota Aygo

The Toyota Aygo model was recently reviewed by Fifth Gear television programme for Channel Five, who gave the car a positive assessment, with qualified complaints concerning certain areas. The car, available via internet car sites such as www.motors.co.uk and other places, is similar to other models including the Citroen 101 and the 107 Peugeot model in that it shares the same engine – a 101 litre three cylinder – and comparable equipment.

The Toyota Aygo is a small car – dinky, even, at eight inches shorter than a similar vehicle such as the Ka produced by Ford. However the attractive external design mitigates this, while smart internal design ensures that maximum use is made of the interior space, making it a reasonable option as a family car, as well as for single people or couples. There is considerable room afforded around the driver and front passenger seats, while there is also a decent amount of back seat space. One downside is that the boot of the car is very small and difficult to access, perhaps making it less attractive as a choice for families. The overall design of the interior is intelligent, but the chosen plastic materials have a cheap appearance.

In terms of performance the Aygo is very good, with the 1.0 litre three cylinder engine. This petrol engine provides both comfortable cruising and fine acceleration capacity together with fuel economy superior to that provided by diesel engines. The car is perfectly suited to driving in busy urban areas thanks to the precise, nimble controls and will comfortably handle long distances. In terms of equipment, it is similar to the Peugeot and Citreons, with all models in the Aygo range featuring four airbags, ABS and a CD stereo player, which also has a supplementary MP3 player input. However the cheapest model features wind-up windows and does not have central locking, while overall equipment is better for the higher models in the range – matched by the higher prices.

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