First look: Verso points to next Corolla

TOYOTA has unveiled the first model to be based on the next new Corolla, the Verso Mark Two.

Built in Turkey alongside the current series Corolla wagon that it shares its front-wheel drive platform with, the Verso II is due to go on sale across Europe in May.

There are no plans to bring the Verso II to Australia in the near future.

But a Toyota spokesman did reveal that if the local mini people-mover market does pick up over the next 12 months, the company would review the possibility of releasing it here.

In the meantime, the Verso II reveals some of Toyota’s small car ambitions over the next six years.

Many of the its exterior styling cues point to what the next Corolla – number 10 in a series that stretches back to 1966 KE10 – will look like when it gets here in early 2006.

A bold new split grille is expected to form part of Toyota’s fresh corporate face. There’s also a very Germanic profile dominated by clean lines, flat surfacing, geometric wheel arches and a thick C-pillar.

They suggest that the forthcoming Corolla hatchback will be even more Volkswagen Golf-like in its appearance than the current boxy version, released here in December 2001.

More traditionally Toyota is the fussy headlight and tail-light treatments which echo, pardon the pun, the Echo light car as well as the most recent Prado 4WD.

This is unsurprising as the Verso II’s visage sprang from the same studio as those cars, Toyota’s French-based ED2 design centre.

The seven-seater interior, with the rear five seats foldable for a flat load space, is also Prado-like, revealed in the dashboard’s symmetrical console, large instrumentation and use of metal-like trim.

Much of the new Verso cabin’s basic architecture is also expected to migrate to the more mainstream four-door Corolla hatch, sedan and wagon variants.

With its apparent quality presentation, Toyota is keen to conquer buyers spoiled by a class defined by the stylishly lush cabins of the VW Golf, Renault Megane and Peugeot 307.

Meanwhile, Toyota’s strategy of revealing the Verso variant ahead of the Corolla may not be novel (both the VW Touran and Ford C-Max debuted a year before their respective Golf V and Focus II parents), but it does show how vital the Verso II is.

Toyota expects to sell around 62,000 units in Europe this year.

Since the trailblazing Renault Scenic kicked it all off in 1996, over one million such vehicles are sold annually there.

Holden’s German GM affiliate Opel has even admitted that the best selling variant of its new Astra is expected to be the still-secret Zafira II version.

The current car has also been one of Opel’s few star performers since its 1999 debut, even though the Holden version has not fared as well here.

Australians, it seems, are yet to be convinced of the space efficiency and seating versatility advantages of the mini people-mover, despite concerted efforts by the Zafira, Renault Scenic and Mazda Premacy.

The Zafira and Scenic have been running well below their initial sales forecasts and the Premacy has been withdrawn from the market.