If you’re on the hunt for a city car, there’s plenty of new models to choose from in the current market. You need to make sure your car is fuel-efficient, comfortable, stylish to drive and a true reflection of your personality.
We’re interested in two new models in particular; the Toyota Aygo available at Inchcape Toyota and the Peugeot 108. But with the two being so similar, how do we know which one to choose? Which one is more fuel efficient? Which is more comfortable to drive? What kinds of prices are we looking at? Well, let’s have a look and see.
The Toyota Aygo; the features
The Toyota Aygo, which starts around the £8k mark, is a small car with a playful personality. You might have seen the “go fun yourself” slogans on billboards everywhere recently, and the car itself lives up to its reputation.
The Aygo is inspired by the Japanese cartoon ‘Astroboy’ and is beautifully styled, compact and agile. With the Aygo, there’s a wide range of customisation options available so that the customer can express their individuality. With the 1L engine, the Toyota Aygo is cheap to fuel and tax, making it economical as well as downright fancy. The ‘X’ styling may take some getting used to, but the design is distinctive enough to completely differentiate the Aygo from every other car on the road at the moment.
You can take the personalisation of the Toyota Aygo a step further with more investment. The Aygo x-play, x-pression, x-cite and x-clusiv offer varying technological extras, from Bluetooth connectivity, to multimedia systems, to rear-view cameras. For the top-end Aygo X-clusiv, you’re probably looking more around the £11k mark, but it’s definitely worth the money.
Pros and cons
The pros:
- The size of the engine makes the Aygo relatively cheap to run
- You pretty much have the option of personalising the Aygo any way you see fit
- The size of the vehicle is well-suited for short trips around a city, but is also comfortable to drive on the motorway
- With the distinctive ‘X’ design, the Aygo is very stylish drive
- The Aygo’s engine is notably quiet to drive a lot of the time
The cons:
- For the top-end x-clusiv, the price is a bit steep but overall, excellent value for money
- The Aygo is a four seater, with not a great amount of boot space, so it’s maybe not an ideal choice for a family car
- The Aygo currently only comes with a 1L engine, so there’s not much room for variation in that regard
The Peugeot 108; the features
The Peugeot 108 is the most recent little car to roll off the production line. It shares a lot of characteristics with the Toyota Aygo, in that it’s small, compact and ideally suited for busy city dwellers. The new 108 3-door comes as a hatchback version or as a cabrio with a retractable fabric roof, in a variety of colourful interiors and exterior themes. Whilst the 108 has been revolutionized in terms of its new lines and stylish design, it’s still got the recognizable front grille and headlights. The 108 is perfect for manoeuvring in tight spaces, with a turning radius of 4.8m, making it perfect for short city journeys. You can choose from eight different paint finishes, 7 creative themes and three interior ambiences, so you can truly make this car your own. Except for the cheapest version, the 108 has a touch screen system for controlling infotainment and can also hook up to certain smartphones. A mirror image can be projected onto the screen so you can use Google maps and play music whilst driving. The prices for the Peugeot 108 are quite similar to those of the Toyota Aygo and as a general rule, the more you customise the more you pay.
Pros and cons
The pros:
- There’s a huge range of customisation options available so you can truly make the Peugeot 108 your own
- If you’re looking for a bit of extra power, you have the option of a 1.2L engine with the Peugeot 108
- The boot is slightly larger in the Peugeot 108 than the Toyota Aygo
- The steering is quite accurate and light
The cons:
- Similar to the Aygo, the Peugeot 108 is quite a small car, so maybe not suited for families
- Refinement is a slight issue. With both the 1L and 1.2L, the engines send a lot of vibration through the gearstick, wheel and seat bases, which can be irritating
- With the Top! Version, the roar of the wind might be little bit too loud on motorway journeys
The verdict
When it comes down to fuel efficiency, size and overall price, there isn’t a huge amount of difference between the Aygo and 108. But if we had to pick one, we’d probably go for the Toyota Aygo. It’s arguably the most stylish and likely to last the long term with its comprehensive five-year warranty. Additionally, Toyota boasts a notable sixth place finish in the 2014 Driver Power reliability table, whereas Peugeot finishes in the second half of the league. Toyota has the best reputation for reliability and the makers boast a choice of nearly half a million trim and colour combinations. That definitely gives the Aygo the upper hand for making the car your own.
PEUGEOT introduces tons of upgrades and changes to its compact city car, the PEUGEOT 108. The updates include some exterior changes, and numerous enhancements for the interior.
The fancy PEUGEOT 108 already received the best of all prizes: customer’s recognition for one of the best vehicles available for its cost. And now PEUGEOT team brings and other good news. The 108 model is now available with two additional technologies: Active City Brake and Lane Departure Warning system.
Peugeot has partnered with Roland Garros for a 108 Special Edition vehicle. The partnership is more than 30 years old and therefore you have probably heard that many special vehicles have been manufactured. In 1989 the French company has introduced its first two Roland Garros 205 and the 405 estate cars. Over the next years, thanks to this partnership were developed a lot of special editions with unique body styles that most closely match the image of tennis.
