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Toyota has given the Aygo X an aggressive new look and a hybrid powertrain that is claimed to emit the least CO2 of any non-plug-in car in Europe.

The brand’s smallest and most affordable car has adopted the same 1.5-litre four-cylinder petrol-electric hybrid powertrain that is used in the larger Yaris, sending up to 114bhp through the front wheels. 

This is enough to send the Aygo X from 0-62mph in less than 10sec – a significant improvement on the previous 14.9sec. And, product manager Cesar Romero told Autocar, it will yield fuel efficiency in excess of 74mpg, pending official WLTP testing.

The existing 71bhp 1.0-litre three-pot, which traces its lineage back to the original Aygo of two decades ago, is being removed from the line-up, and the option of a manual gearbox goes with it; the Aygo X is now fitted with the Yaris’s CVT-like epicyclic automatic as standard.

In addition to the much-improved performance of the hybrid, two key motivators for the older lump’s removal from the line-up are the UK’s zero-emission vehicle mandate and fleet CO2 emissions targets.

The ZEV mandate contains a provision that allows car manufacturers to convert reductions in their total CO2 outputs into de facto ‘sales’ of electric cars, giving them extra flexibility to meet EV sales targets.

Every 167g/km of CO2 cut from a firm’s total output in any given year can be converted into one ZEV ‘sale’, meaning they have to sell one less electric car to meet compliance targets – or they can sell an extra petrol, diesel or hybrid car within their limit.

This is particularly relevant for the Aygo. It is one of Toyota’s best-selling models in the UK, and the new hybrid system emits significantly less CO2 than the previous petrol engine. It’s rated at 86g/km, a reduction of 23g. For reference, the rival MG 3 Hybrid+ emits 100g/km.

Autocar understands that Toyota sold some 14,000 examples of the city car in the UK last year. Had those all been the new hybrid, Toyota would have been able to sell in excess of 2000 additional ICE cars while remaining within its limit.

Separately from the ZEV mandate, such a significant reduction would have given Toyota crucial leeway in its fleet emissions targets: it would have offset the total output of nearly 1600 GR Yarises (rated at 215g/km) or 1400 Land Cruisers (240g/km).

The uprated powertrain will, however, bring an increase in cost. Toyota has yet to confirm numbers, but Romero said: "What we're targeting is, especially on a monthly payment, the total cost of ownership. Fuel consumption of the vehicle will be much lower than for the current car, thanks to the hybrid powertrain. We expect the step [in overall costs] not to be so big."

For reference, the current pure-petrol Aygo X starts at £16,485, while the Yaris opens at £23,445.

Inside, the new Aygo X features a series of subtle changes. The outgoing car’s analogue speedometer and rev counter are swapped for a small digital instrument screen, and there is now a pair of USB-C ports below the climate control panel.

An infrared sensor is now mounted on the steering rack (for the EU-mandated driver attention monitoring system) and there are updated buttons on the steering wheel for the speed limit-warning and lane-keeping systems. 

Toyota has also added more sound deadening around the dashboard and under the bonnet, and the exhaust has been reworked to improve refinement. 

Higher trim levels will get yet more soundproofing and thicker window glass. The first examples of the new Aygo X are due in the UK early next year.

New GR Sport trim brings warm-hatch appeal

The new GR Sport trim (pictured above) aims to imbue the sensible Aygo X with more dynamic appeal, bringing with it a stiffer chassis and quicker steering.

A full-fat GR model isn’t planned, however; Toyota says the new hybrid powertrain’s 114bhp – yielding a power-to-weight ratio similar to that of the old VW Up GTI and Fiat Panda 100HP – is sufficient to make it fun to drive.

One of the things people love to say about the Audi A2 is that it was ahead of its time. It’s the opinion people seem to hold most about the small Audi.

And I get that: if you pulled the wraps from it today, it would still look modern. In October last year, Audi did just that, when it revealed the A2 E-tron concept restomod to celebrate the car’s 25th anniversary, and it looked as fresh as a piglet.

But if the A2 was ‘ahead of its time’, it must still be a long, long way ahead of its time, because more than a quarter of a century after it was launched, the world is not oversupplied with compact aluminium four-seaters that weigh less than 900kg and measure 3.8m long.

No, instead the family car market is filled with very un-A2ish things: steel, heavy and crossovery. Influentially, and financially, the Audi A2 was a dead end. Audi sold just 176,000 of them globally over five years, at a time when Ford was selling 125,000 Focuses, in the UK alone, every year.

The car that has come closest to following it, spiritually, was perhaps the BMW i3. BMW sold fewer than 25,000 of those a year too.

And yet, and yet. What we once called Audi’s “nearly successful” A2 must have made a cultural impact because, believe me, people do like to talk about it.

I’ve written about thousands of different cars over the years but my inbox has never known anything like the correspondence I’ve received since I bought an A2 in February. I’ve heard from the owners’ club, talked with an owner who also has a McLaren F1, and heard from a guy who owns eight A2s.

My car’s previous owner was grateful I picked it up early, because he didn’t want his mum to visit and see it was going. I still don’t know enough about the A2, but I’m starting to see how it’s adored. And it’s easy to understand why.

For a start, it looks cute. Remember, the ’90s was a decade in which Audi showed the Avus concept and went on to make great-looking A4, A6 and A8 models, and when the A2 arrived in late 1999 it had recently launched the TT. It was cooking.

Then there’s the cleanness of lines and the efficiencies that come with that. If you tried, you could (as Audi’s apprentices did with the A2 E-tron concept) clean up some of the details – the exposed windscreen wiper and protruding door handles – to make it even more slippery.

But with a drag coefficient of 0.25-0.29 depending on model, and the small frontal area given by its 1.67m body width and 1.55m height, it was an extremely efficient car.

“Only an electric car or a very frugal diesel uses less fuel,” we said in its 2000 road test. (‘Electric’ referencing the hybridised £17,000 Honda Insight, the Audi’s nearest –only – hypermiling rival of the time.)

At nearly £16,000 for a 1.4 petrol SE, the A2 looked relatively expensive then, especially if you compared it with similarly sized cars. Even against a Volkswagen Golf, we thought it initially looked “overpriced and undersized”, a problem Mercedes-Benz had been suffering with the A-Class, a similarly small car that offered cleverer than typical packaging to create additional interior space.

But when you factored in residual values, plus the A2’s fuel efficiency, ownership costs would have been extremely competitive. Buyers didn’t see it that way, though.

It’s a shame, but perhaps no great surprise, that the A2 received no direct replacement, and that Mercedes eventually let the A-Class morph into the trad C-segment hatchback it remains today.

Now the A2 exists solely as a modern classic, then, and it is still relatively common: howmanyleft.co.uk says there are more than 5500 on the road across all variants in the UK, which I think is a remarkably high number.

The body doesn’t rust like steel, of course, although insurance costs can be pricey because aluminium panels are harder to repair. Mine cost £250 to insure but a colleague, trying to add his learner daughter, found it was twice as expensive as a VW Polo.

Mine is a 1.4-litre 75bhp diesel, it can return 70mpg on a run and I’m told the things to watch out for are regular cambelt changes and fragile, rust- and fatigue-prone lower suspension arms.

The headlining peels and apparently door hinges can sag, but I suppose I’ll find out more the longer I own the car.

Mechanically, A2s are otherwise from a more simple age, and in using common VW parts (I replaced a wheel bearing, the same as a Golf’s, for £30) plus with a thriving owners’ scene, it should be possible to keep it running indefinitely.

I must do just that. The A2 might not have foretold the future, but it works perfectly well in it.