There’s A New Toyota Starlet, Sort Of

The Starlet Cross is a rebadged Suzuki crossover for the South African market, and it (confusingly) joins the Baleno-based Starlet supermini

Mike Bartholomew

06 Aug 2024

Earlier this year, the car world was awash with rumours that the Toyota Starlet would be making a return as a new super-light supermini with a sporty 148bhp GR version sitting at the top of the range.

The thing is, if you were reading about those rumours in some African nations, you might have found yourself a bit confused, because as far as you were concerned, the Starlet was already back.

Indeed, Toyota has been selling a new Starlet in parts of Africa since 2020, but it’s not what you’re thinking. It’s actually a rebadged Suzuki Baleno, a supermini that was briefly sold in Europe before Suzuki remembered that it already sold the Swift, and didn’t really need two superminis in its lineup when most companies can barely justify one these days.

Anyway, the Suzuki-based Starlet has been enough of a success for Toyota in Africa that it’s expanded the Starlet name further onto, inevitably, a small crossover. Even more inevitably, it’s called the Starlet Cross.

Like its supermini sibling, it’s actually a rebadged Suzuki: the Indian-built Fronx, which is also sold in India as the Toyota Urban Cruiser Taisor. Still with us?

Just launched in South Africa, it’s available with a single engine: a 1.5-litre naturally aspirated four-cylinder that drives the front wheels. Producing 103bhp and 102lb ft of torque, it can be linked with either a five-speed manual or four-speed automatic. It’ll hit a top speed of 109mph, and reach 62mph in… an amount of time. We can’t find the figure anywhere.

If you are in South Africa, the Starlet Cross will cost you from 299,900 Rand – approximately £12,700. That’s remarkably cheap given the kind of new car prices we’re used to in Europe, but it’s still an increase on the regular Starlet, which starts at 252,100 Rand – a mere £10,700.

If we’re going to get any new Starlet in Europe, it’s far more likely to be the one rumoured to be under development by Toyota in Japan. That said, if Toyota does want to send any of its South African market cars over here, we’d happily take the painfully cool 70-series Land Cruiser. Please and thank you.

The first full sentence spoken by an infant Mike was a review of the ride quality of a Volvo 850. It was “Daddy’s car goes bumpy-bump on a bumpy road,” so would probably need proofreading a bit, but it was a start.