Safety requirements compromise the Aygo’s cabin space. Frontal impact performance dictates that the front occupants sit so far back in the cabin that the rest of the package suffers.
The driver is elevated a few inches above the level of a regular-hatchback driver and head, leg and shoulder room are fine. But rear passenger room is limited to the extent that six-footers won’t fit behind people of similar size. Boot space is equally marginal, and the high lip makes loading a touch tricky.
It’s a cheery cabin though. Trim and build are slightly better than you’d expect for the money, and there’s a sparseness to the controls that somehow suit its role well.
Aygo Plus specification gives you front side airbags in addition to the driver and passenger ’bags standard on the basic model, likewise ISOFIX points for the rear seats. But perhaps the most important aspect of the Aygo’s active safety measures is the strength of the car itself: over 50 per cent of the shell is made from high-tensile steel.
Even at the test track the tiny three-cylinder motor returned 45.4mpg and that was the expensive side to an overall figure of 60.1mpg.
Given the amount of thought that has clearly gone into its design, two aspects of the Aygo leave us a touch perplexed. The first is the price. The base car looks good value, but with air conditioning and metallic paint our test car’s price rose to £8320.
Furthermore, just as Toyota and PSA have invested heavily in Czechoslovakian labour with the factory that produces the Aygo, Renault has underwritten the Dacia Logan project in Romania, but is somehow managing to produce a much bigger vehicle for nearly half the money.
Space is the other issue. Whereas (with an optional £100 seatbelt) a Fiat Panda can carry five and a decent chunk of luggage, the Aygo simply won’t. Given the other ways in which the Aygo’s designers have excelled, we hoped for more ingenuity and flexibility in the cabin.