The Toyota Auris Touring Sports Hybrid has low headline running costs and impressive luggage space, but it fails to inspire dynamically with uncertain steering and a lack of torque
This is the Toyota Auris estate, although with a name like Touring Sports you might imagine something a little more glamorous and powerful. There’s a small but solid market for these traditional estates, with most sold to fleet buyers. In fact, Toyota reckons that more than 60 per cent of these more practical Aurises will be destined for company car parks.Like the Auris hatch, the estate is a neat, contemporary-looking wagon with a pleasing hint of the rakish, whose most impressive feature is that the drivetrain and battery pack of the hybrid version is accommodated without compromising the car’s luggage carrying capacity. Which is quite a feat. Not only that, but its 1658-litre seats-down loadspace is also the best in the class.The load bay is also well shaped and will – just – swallow objects two metres long, although you’ll be getting intimate with the steering wheel with something that large in the space behind you. The tailgate is yawningly big, the seats fold easily and the removable roll-out parcel shelf doubles as a divider between the front seats and the load space, so it’s certainly practical.Besides the 1.8 hybrid there are 1.3 and 1.6-litre petrol engines and a 1.4 diesel. There are alos four trim levels, the priciest Excel being the package sampled here.
The Toyota Auris Touring Sports Hybrid has low headline running costs and impressive luggage space, but it fails to inspire dynamically with uncertain steering and a lack of torque
This is the Toyota Auris estate, although with a name like Touring Sports you might imagine something a little more glamorous and powerful. There’s a small but solid market for these traditional estates, with most sold to fleet buyers. In fact, Toyota reckons that more than 60 per cent of these more practical Aurises will be destined for company car parks.Like the Auris hatch, the estate is a neat, contemporary-looking wagon with a pleasing hint of the rakish, whose most impressive feature is that the drivetrain and battery pack of the hybrid version is accommodated without compromising the car’s luggage carrying capacity. Which is quite a feat. Not only that, but its 1658-litre seats-down loadspace is also the best in the class.The load bay is also well shaped and will – just – swallow objects two metres long, although you’ll be getting intimate with the steering wheel with something that large in the space behind you. The tailgate is yawningly big, the seats fold easily and the removable roll-out parcel shelf doubles as a divider between the front seats and the load space, so it’s certainly practical.Besides the 1.8 hybrid there are 1.3 and 1.6-litre petrol engines and a 1.4 diesel. There are alos four trim levels, the priciest Excel being the package sampled here.