The Toyota Will Vi Is The Strangest Yaris You’ll Ever See

Japan is no stranger to bonkers car designs. You only need to look at the Isuzu Vehicross, Autozam AZ-1, Nissan S-Cargo, Toyota Sera, anything from Mitsouka, just to reel off a few well-known examples.

Yet, we think all of those pale in comparison to something we think could be the strangest vehicle design to ever be produced by a large-scale car manufacturer. Let alone one that builds the Camry.

We are talking about the Toyota Will Vi (or if you want the exact branding, WiLL). On its surface, you wouldn’t be able to tell this was a Toyota – not only does it look like absolutely nothing else the manufacturer has produced, but it didn’t have a single visible badge for the brand anywhere on it.

The tiny four-door car isn’t really a hatchback, nor is it really a saloon. Toyota said that the silhouette was ‘reminiscent of the horse-drawn carriages of yesteryear’, although we suspect someone had started drawing a bubble car and then felt inspired by a wedge of cheese cut out of a wheel. That’s not even addressing the random triple indents across the doors, bonnet and bootlid.

As for the interior, that was supposed to make you feel like being in your own living room. Bench seats were fitted front and rear, and lots of brown plastics and materials were dotted throughout. Oh, and still no Toyota badges – the steering wheel instead housing indents to match those on the outside.

Under the mad-looking bodywork was… a Toyota Yaris. Yes, the Will Vi shared its whole platform, 1.3-litre 87bhp engine and four-speed automatic gearbox. Not exactly thrilling, but probably perfectly fine.

So, the question is, why? Well, WiLL was a band created as part of a marketing project across several different companies, Toyota being the only car manufacturer as part of it. The point was to try and appeal to younger customers. Other products made under the brand name included Panasonic electronics, Asahi beer and Kao… air fresheners.

Toyota produced the Will VI from January 200 until December 2001, with about 16,000 of them sold. It wasn’t the only Will car though, with the almost as weird Will Cypha and unironically very cool Will VS. Those are stories for another day, though.

Although only officially sold in Japan, some examples of the Will Vi have found their way to the UK. They do occasionally come up for sale, and seem to fetch around £3k-5k for a tidy one as we’re writing this.