When it was new, I had a Toyota Aygo long-term test car. It was as basic as any car of its era could be. But I wasn’t being punished. I chose it. Its simplicity was the essence of its appeal. Toyota offered aircon as an option, but I turned it down – it was 10 per cent of the price of the entire car. There followed the hottest summer in memory, but sometimes you have to suffer for your art.
The Aygo’s appeal wasn’t because it had had a load of stuff dumped off it. It was the zen philosophy at work in its engineering. The solutions were elegant and satisfying. All over the car you’d find places where Toyota used one part in place of several, and ideally made that one part do another job too. Most car engineers are inculcated with the impulsion to use off-the-shelf parts, so they grab a generic bracket and a commodity nut and bolt, and a hook to fix to the bracket. It works, but it’s a bodge. Aygo’s philosophy was to use instead a self-fastening bracket with an integrated hook. This four-seat hatch was lighter than a Lotus Elise.
Now, you might think the next sentence is a segue that stretches credulity, but bear with me. That Aygo brings to mind Gordon Murray’s T.50. He operates by a similar philosophy. Instead of festooning the outside of his engine and gearbox with hoses, couplings and clips, the coolant runs through passages drilled within the casings. It demanded more thought at the design stage, but it does away with boring ugly leak-prone commodity parts. It’s lighter, and the powertrain looks far more elegant.
“ALL OVER THE CAR YOU’D FIND
PLACES WHERE TOYOTA USED ONE
PART IN PLACE OF SEVERAL”