Toyota Verso 2.0 D-4D 130 MPV review

When you develop a new sports car, plenty of fast laps around the Nürburgring are almost essential. But how do you develop the perfect MPV?

Toyota reckons the answer is to head to the car parks of IKEA and EuroDisney to scope out just how families use their MPVs to cart around kids, kit and flat-pack kitchens. And this new Verso is the result.

According to Toyota, MPV buyers are a very demanding, but very segment loyal bunch. And as long as the new Verso is good to look at, cheap to run, good to drive, safe, practical and well-spec’d, Toyota is in with a shout of selling around 4,500 units it predicts it’ll shift in the UK per year.

Design-wise, the Verso’s looks are best described as functional. The new chunky family face as debuted by the Avensis looks OK, but the big, light doors make accessing the cabin pretty easy. Those huge wing mirrors make reversing over your kid’s favourite outdoor toy more avoidable, but the trade-off is a fair bit of wind noise on the motorway.

As you’d expect, the Verso boasts some very clever seats, each with its own three-point seatbelt. Up front, the seats are very comfortable, and set high for a good view of the road. The seats in the middle row of three tilt and slide individually, and there are two seats in the boot which can be raised and lowered with just one hand.

Only very tiny people will fit in the back though, so anything more than a school run distance will because for much grumpiness. And boot space with the second row of seats up is minimal.

The Verso is comfortable to drive. The big expanses of glass make it easy to see out of, and its Avensis-sourced underpinnings do a fine job of ironing out the worst bumps and lumps in the road. But the steering is freakishly light, so buyers after a little more driver involvement should snap up a Ford S-MAX instead.

And it’s the S-MAX that’s the biggest stumbling block for the Verso. The S-MAX set a new dynamic benchmark for MPVs. It ‘s also good to look at and competitively priced too. And despite the fact the new Verso is loaded with kit like air con, Bluetooth and an MP3-compatible stereo, the big Ford is still better to drive, better to be in and better to look at than Toyota’s latest offering, no matter how long they spent at IKEA.