Readers of this blog have already known this since last week, but now UMW Toyota Motor Sdn Bhd has officially announced the Vios J to the media so we have high resolution photos of the interior to look at, available after the jump.
According to UMW Toyota Motor MD Kuah Kock Heng, the Vios current holds 50% of the 1.4 to 1.5 litre market share in Malaysia, effectively this means foreign makes with a small engine capacity as Proton offerings are 1.3 and 1.6 and the more price-savvy Peroduas are all 1.3 and below. The second generation Vios available in E, G, S and now J form have collectively been selling about 2,500 units a month. They are targetting 700 sales a month from the new Vios J.
With the new Vios J UMW Toyota has finally executed their intention to offer a Vios model for under RM70k (see 4th April 2007 story), although quite a fair bit has been removed from the equipment list. The model under RM70k costs RM69,800 and is only available with a manual transmission. There no airbags, foglamps or alloy wheels but you do get an MP3 CD player albeit not integrated, and other safety features such as ABS remain, which is used more in day to day driving. Adding a 4-speed Super ECT automatic transmission pushes the price up to RM73,500.