During the Toyota Venza press presentation in gorgeous Farmington, Pennsylvania, we listened to Toyota describe the recipe for the perfect modern station wagon: Take one of the country’s most popular sedans—the Camry, natch—add more trunk room for your junk, raise the roof a few inches, and leave everything else where it is. The thing is, Toyota won’t call the Venza a wagon.

Nor, for that matter, does it consider the Venza a crossover, the term every other manufacturer calls its wagons when it’s too chicken to call them wagons. To describe the Venza, then, Toyota came up with a yet-undiscovered wagon-avoidance term: “the car, optimized.”

Mix of Highlander and Camry

Eyes rolled around the room. Isn’t “the car, optimized” the very definition of a wagon? Toyota’s feeling is that the Venza is about 70-percent car, 30-percent SUV, but in contrast to most crossovers and sport-utes, the Venza makes no promises of off-road dexterity. (Although, interestingly, the Venza offers the same 8.1 inches of ground clearance as does Toyota’s own Highlander.) It also doesn’t offer a third-row-seat option, so mechanically speaking, what you have here essentially is a “Camry, optimized.” Read more »

The Paris Motor Show will see the world debut of Toyota’s all-new European flagship model, the Avensis that will be available in both sedan and station-wagon variants. Following the initial release of a rear 3/4 shot, Toyota has now let out more images of the Avensis including the first photos of the interior and of the station-wagon model.

Designed, engineered and built in Europe, the third generation Avensis features a more distinct and crispier design than its predecessor. Notable styling elements include the BMW-like Hoffmeister kink, the high beltline and the somewhat ‘obtrusive’ design of the vehicle’s front-end. The interior styling on the other hand is more evolutionary as it echoes that of the current Avensis.

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The new Toyota iQ is a landmark car: the world’s soon-to-be-biggest car maker has gone and made the world’s smallest four-seater. You see, the iQ packs two rows of pews into a tiny slip of a hatchback. It’s not even three metres long. But the Toyota iQ has a twist; like Smart’s Fortwo, the last car to rip up the packaging rule book, the iQ wears a distinctly premium price tag.

Think of it like house prices. Although the iQ is tiny, at just 2985mm long, it is plonked slap bang in Mayfair, carrying an estimated £10,000 price tag when UK sales start in January 2009. So it had better be good…

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Aygo Crazy is the perfect antidote to all those wild concept cars that look great on the show stand but never turn a wheel. It is a unique machine that has been developed from the start to deliver no-holds-barred maximum driving pleasure, an unforgettable, fun experience.

Making its public debut at the British International Motor Show in London, Aygo Crazy is a one-off model, a “shopping supercar” that takes Aygo’s essential qualities to the limit. Owing more to the spirit of Group B rallying rather than D1 drifting, this is a car that is all about the joy of driving: with no electronic handling aids, no power steering and no ABS, it is like a kart with doors and a roof. Read more »