Toyota Aygo Crazy review

This review originally appeared in Issue 185 of Top Gear magazine (2008)

Origins: Toyota’s performance skunkworks

For the past few years, the unfortunate folk marooned in Toyota’s R&D “performance” corner haven’t exactly been overworked. After the Celica, MR2 and Supra were all put out to pasture, you imagine they spent their days parked on their collective backsides, folding origami swans.

That changed a short while ago, when a Toyota executive ambled over, casually carrying an Aygo under one arm.

"There y'go, lads. Do your worst. Go Crazy™."

"What, an Aygo? Can't we at least have an Auris?

"No. Then the pun wouldn't work."

"A Yaris?"

"Nope, you're getting an Aygo. But here's the deal. You can do whatever you want. Anything."

"OK, deal. How many are we doing, then? A few thousand, yeah?"

"Er, one. Sorry. Get to work."

Engineering the mid‑engined Toyota Aygo Crazy

So they did exactly that: they went properly off the rails. The tiny Aygo was treated to carbon fibre, Brembo brakes, a colossal bodykit, a widened track, and the 1.8-litre VVTi engine from the final MR2-now wearing a fresh turbo kit.

And because that lot sounded almost reasonable, they binned the rear seats and installed the engine in their place. So yes: what you’re looking at is a mid-engined, rear-drive Aygo with 197bhp. The promise of snap oversteer hasn’t been dished out this generously since the Clio V6.

The madness continues. The engineers also removed the ESP system, along with the power steering. They even did away with the brake servo. Their description is “a kart with a roof”. Ours is: unsettling.

Driving it: steering feel and turbo theatrics

Even so, the Aygo Crazy is far more mannerly from behind the wheel than you’d expect. Admittedly, the front splitter sits so near the tarmac that you could scrape it on yellow lines, but both throttle and clutch respond smoothly and are surprisingly forgiving.

Yes, if you boot it in the wet it can feel a touch nervous, but it’s so light (the Aygo tips the scales at a tonne) and so communicative that keeping it tidy isn’t a struggle.

Much of that comes down to the steering-once you’re rolling, at least-which is genuinely remarkable. There’s a small dead patch around the straight-ahead, yet the moment you load it up in a bend it becomes vivid and alive. Porsche GT2 good. You can practically taste the road surface through your fingertips. True, you’ll need a three-times-a-week gym training routine just to park it, but surely that’s a price worth paying?

The real party piece, though, is the turbo wastegate’s ridiculous snigger. This isn’t a discreet little chirp: it’s a huge whoosh, an involuntary burst of laughter every time you lift off the throttle. It’s brilliant.

And that’s the whole point of this ludicrous, over-the-top car: fun. No, you can’t buy an Aygo Crazy-Toyota built it as a one-off showcase-but it proves the world’s biggest manufacturer hasn’t had its sense of humour surgically removed. Taken as a complete package it’s clearly far too much, yet a dash of this sort of silliness in Toyota’s line-up would be very welcome.

It would also give those poor engineers something to do.