The Toyota Vios Introduced in 2003 is a 4-door subcompact sedan developed for the South East Asia and China markets. The Vios serves as a replacement of the Toyota Soluna which filled the Asian subcompact market for a 1.5 litre, below the Toyota Corolla and Toyota Camry, both of which are also marketed in the region. The Vios is marketed alongside the Toyota Yaris in most countries in South East Asia, which offered another option for a hatchback, when it officially entered the region's market in 2005. In the United States, the second generation Vios is known as the Toyota Belta or the Toyota Yaris hatchback.
The new Vios is essentially a re-badged Toyota Belta sedan, which launched in November 2005. The model code for cars with 1.5 liter 1NZ-FE engines is NCP93. The engine is only available where the Vios is marketed, including the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei and Thailand. As was the first generation Vios, the second generation Vios is assembled at Thailand's Toyota Gateway Plant and also at the Philippines Santa Rosa, Laguna Plant. In the United States, Canada and Australia it is marketed as the Yaris Sedan, replacing the Echo sedan, with production sourced from Japan.
The 2008 Vios has the tagline "My Design, My Pride" and currently has 4 grades: the base 1.3 J, with almost the same specs as to that of the J grade of the 2003 Vios, only that it had a 14" steel wheel with wheel cover, an all-new central analogue display, vinyl shift lever and knob, manual locks and windows and fabric seats. It is mated to a 5-speed manual transmission. The 1.3 E is the same as the J grade, only that it has 14" alloy wheels, Toyota Vehicle Security System, and driver-side SRS airbags. The 1.5 G has 3 options: G 4 A/T leather, G 4 A/T or G 5 M/T. It has a 1.5 1NZ-FE engine, leather seats for the leather sub-variant, 4-speed automatic transmission, 5-manual transmission and 2 SRS airbags. The 1.5 S Limited XX Edition was released in July 2008, and has almost no difference with that of the G variant, only that it had an electronic driver-side SRS airbags, front, side, and rear skirt and a spoiler. It still has the same wheel size, but the S grade has 10-spoke alloy wheels.
