Mazda’s Toyota Yaris clone gets early facelift to look less like a Toyota

The Mazda 2 sold in Europe – a hybrid Toyota Yaris with Mazda badges – has been given a restyle less than two years after its launch in an attempt to look more like a Mazda.

The Mazda 2 Hybrid – a rebadged Toyota Yaris Hybrid sold exclusively in Europe to help meet emissions standards – has been given an early styling update to differentiate it from its identical twin.

The original version of the European ‘Mazda 2 Hybrid’ unveiled less than two years ago was a current-generation Yaris with the Toyota badges removed from the nose, tailgate, wheels and steering wheel – and Mazda logos in their place.

Now it has received a facelift with styling changes – including a new front fascia – penned by Mazda designers in Europe and Japan, in an attempt make the Toyota-made vehicle look like a Mazda.

Above: Original Mazda 2 Hybrid in red, Toyota Yaris in blue.

However it appears the development budget was small given the changes do not extend beyond a new front bumper, and a body-coloured garnish on the tailgate to give the tail-lights a more rounded, Mazda-like shape.

The body shell, doors, rear bumper, headlights, tail-lights, wheels and interior are all carried over from the Toyota Yaris, alongside which the Mazda 2 Hybrid is built in a Toyota factory in France.

Mazda has now designed its own ‘HYBRID’ badge to place on the tailgate – rather than the Hybrid badge pulled from the Toyota parts bin that was fitted to the previous model – which Mazda’s press release claims is intended to “showcase Mazda DNA.”

Introduced in Europe two years ago, the Toyota-built Mazda 2 Hybrid is still sold alongside the Mazda-designed Mazda 2 hatch familiar to Australians, but uses less fuel and produces less CO2 to meet European emissions standards.

Compared to the 95 grams of CO2 per kilometre (g/km) target manufacturers need to hit across their model line-ups to avoid hefty fines, the existing Mazda 2 quotes 100-106g/km – while the Toyota-built version claims 72g/km.

The updated Mazda 2 Hybrid benefits from changes applied to its Toyota Yaris donor earlier this year, including a larger 10.5-inch touchscreen (up from 8.0 inches today) in top-of-the-range models.

It also gains a 12.3-inch widescreen digital instrument cluster, and a new Glass Blue exterior colour.

It misses out on the more powerful 96kW version of the 1.5-litre three-cylinder hybrid system offered in the updated Yaris, instead retaining the 85kW version familiar to Australian buyers, with claimed fuel consumption of 3.8L/100km.

The Mazda 2 Hybrid is sold exclusively in Europe, and built in the Toyota Yaris and Yaris Cross factory in northern France.

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