Toyota Avensis 1.8 Valvematic Tourer

Toyota Avensis 1.8 Valvematic Tourer (2009) CAR review

By Steve Moody

15 December 2008 17:00

Do you have a handy mat for kneeling on in the garden? How about an all-in-one slipper for both your feet? Cantilevered ‘easy’ tongs for picking up leaves without bending down? Is the biggest thrill in your day the frisson of fear delivered by virtue of the Daily Mail’s latest doom-mongering?

No? Well then the chances are that you do not own the current Toyota Avensis either. It’s the sort of car owned by people who take food out of its packaging, and decant it into stackable Tupperware.

Uninspired, pedestrian and lacking in almost any ambition, the only notable feature of the old one was that it looked a bit odd, as though somebody had left it on the window sill in the hot sun, and the corners had melted.

But then faithful, dependable Toyota doesn’t really do exciting. It’s just not part of its plan, and it has a point - admittedly one that most CAR readers just won't get. There are a lot of Tupperware stackers out there, which is why it sells such a staggering amount of cars.

But Ford, Mazda and even Vauxhall have managed to take the humble saloon and do something fairly exciting with it. Perhaps the new generation Avensis will give suburbanites their morning thrill, without the need for stories about knife-wielding immigrants.

I love the sight of Anton Du Beke in his jumpsuit on hilarious TV programme ‘The Wall’. Will the Avensis’s aesthetics give me such a thrill?

Probably not. It seems more time has been spent on the names for the design language than the actual design, with such nuggets as Vibrant Clarity, J-factor, Perfect Imbalance, Freeform Geometrics and Integrated Component Architecture colluding to produce a car that looks rather like a cheap imitation of a Lexus, which of course is no surprise.

The headlights have an edgy, winged appeal while the grille has the chromed, manly strength of it luxurious cousin. But it looks like they’ve fitted the wrong-sized bonnet, with the rim finishing at half-mast somewhere back behind the lights.

The rear, of the saloon in particular, is bland. There’s a badge and some lights but it could be any saloon from the Pacific Rim.

As a design it is singularly unremarkable, perfunctory and delivering no surprises, no flourish and not a jot of joy: a car penned as a means to an end.