Toyota Hyryder : The sun reflected brightly off the Cafe White paint as I tried my best to weave the Toyota Urban Cruiser Hyryder between sector roads while in Gurugram.
A short distance away, at a traffic light, the driver of a Fortuner granted the vehicle with a once-over before rolling down his window. “Toyota ka naya model hai? Kitne ka pada?”
(Is this Toyota’s new model? How much did it cost?) he asked. His eyebrows shot up at the price — about half of what he’d paid, I assumed, for his Fortuner.
This interaction sums up perfectly what Toyota has managed to do with the Urban Cruiser Hyryder – a car that has indelible Toyota SUV DNA with a price that brings it well within the reach of many more buyers.
Having spent a week with this sub 4-meter SUV and using it over the varied terrains of Delhi NCR, I finally have an idea of how Toyota has pulled off this balancing act.
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The Fortuner Connection: A Design That Speaks More Than It Weighs
Let’s deal with the Fortuner comparison right here. Although the Hyryder is positioned in the compact SUV segment (rivaling the Hyundai Creta and Kia Seltos), it shares significant design cues with Toyota’s flagship SUV ensuring a clear family lineage.
Up front, the model has a large, upright grille that has shared proportions and a strong presence with the larger from which the symbol is based, yet its unique design.
It’s the same with the menacing looking LED headlamp with DRLs. The squared-off wheel arches and character lines give the Fortuner a muscular facade from the side profile (albeit a scaled-down version of it).
“We wanted to give it that relationship with our larger SUVs,” Rajiv Kumar, a manager at a Toyota dealership in the Noida area, told me when I visited to hear more about the vehicle’s design philosophy.
“Customers dream for the Fortuner, but not all can afford to stretch financially that far. The Hyryder delivers them that in Toyota’s SUV design language at an accessible price for them.”
This strategy clearly works. I got a lot of comments and questions from other drivers and pedestrians during my week with the Hyryder, who recognized its Toyota SUV shell but not the exact model. A few alluded to the Fortuner linkage after spotting the large Toyota badging.
What’s most remarkable is how the design manages not to look like a cheap doppelgänger of its more expensive cousin.
The Hyryder stands as its own machine but falls in line with its family — something a lot of automotive designers can’t quite hit the mark on.
Toyota Hyryder Budget cost without the budget feel.
Priced between ₹10.86 lakh for the base E variant and ₹19.99 lakh for the top-end V NeoDrive (ex-showroom), the Hyryder squarely sits in the heart of the compact SUV space – nowhere close to the Fortuner to start off with a figure of ₹33.43 lakh.
But on the road, despite the substantial price difference, the Hyryder never feels like much of a letdown.
The cabin, especially in upper trims like my test vehicle, boasts materials and build quality that would feel at home in far pricier vehicles.
That leatherette-wrapped steering wheel is a nice touch point, giving an added sense of quality, and padded door armrests and soft-touch portions of the dash make the Soul feel more upscale.
Even the switchgear feels properly damped with a nice, solid action that imparts a sense of quality.
“Toyota ne kahin pe bhi sasti feeling nahi di hai,” (Toyota hasn’t given a cheap feeling anywhere), said my neighbor Suresh, who owns an earlier-generation Creta, when I invited him to check the car out.
“Thud(blank) vo billi return bhi kar deti hai aur nuksaan bhi kama jaati hai.”“Door close karne par thud awaaz aati hai to lagta hai for..writeFileSync(“aur Kismat aazma rahi hai”)”? (It even makes a reassuring thud sound when closing the door, like the Fortuner.)
It’s not just about the visible quality. The panel gaps are uniformly tight, the doors close with a reassuring slam, and even the interior plastics on lower panels the cars rivals too often ignore are properly finished.
These things add up a lot to a car that feels richer than its price tag lets on.
Toyota Hyryder Powertrain Choices That Cover All Bases
Whereas the Fortuner centers around big and burly diesel powertrains, the Hyryder does make a range of engine options available for different needs and budgets.
My test car came equipped with the powerful hybrid system – a 1.5-litre petrol engine supported by electric power, that together produced 114 bhp but very impressive fuel consumption.
Over my week of mixed driving in and around Delhi NCR, the hybrid system did not disappoint, clocking a very healthy 23.4 km/l as per the trip computer – numbers that bring running costs closer in line with significantly smaller cars despite the Hyryder’s SUV-like dimensions and weight.
The hybrid ‘s game-changer for a lot of our customers,” said Kumar at the showroom. “They’re in the market for an SUV, but they’re worried about gas prices. This technology affords them both without any sacrifice.”
For more budget-conscious tastes, the Hyryder also gets a mild-hybrid variant utilizing that same engine, just without the full electric motor rig.
At 101 bhp this version still manages to offer reasonable efficiency (claimed 21.12 km/l) but the seamless electric-only operation at low speeds which makes the strong hybrid such a joy in urban traffic is missing.
Twins is our only observation about both powertrains, however, for typical Toyota polish.
The switches between electric and petrol propulsion in the hybrid are almost seamless and noise insulation keeps the cabin quiet even when pushing on.
On the highway on the way to Jaipur, the engine settled into a distant roar – at cruising speed, it was whisper-quiet – with conversation even at 100 km/h little more than a loud whisper away.
Toyota Hyryder Ride and Handling: Not Wallowy for a Minivan
Toyota has found a nice sweet spot with suspension tuning on the Hyryder – it’s a comfortable ride that local customers in India love, without the excessive body roll that some of the comfort-oriented SUVs suffer from.
On my test in the pothole-riddled streets of Old Delhi, the suspension soaked up heavy impacts quite well, keeping the nastiest of roads out of the equation for occupants.
But when I pushed the vehicle through some winding roads near Sohna anyway, body control felt reassuringly tight, with predictable reactions to changes of direction.
the steering, which is light for easy in-town turn in but weights up to offer confidence on the highway.
It doesn’t have quite the directness of some sporty rivals, but does exactly what most family SUV buyers want – good comfort and secure handling.
The ground clearance of 181mm, while not close to the off-roading Fortuner capabilities, was more than enough for the regular urban potholes and bad, broken, potholed roads that the Hyryder will face.
When we went to a farmhouse near Gurugram, its road through the fields was particularly bad, but the Hyryder didn’t scrape its belly on the ruts and humps.
Toyota Hyryder Things That Come in Handy – Daily useClassifiable things
In deciding what features to add, Toyota has been parsimonious with the amenities that cars offer, favoring those that add functionality to the daily grind over flashy gizmos that have fans but little utility.
The cabin feels much airier thanks to a panoramic sunroof in higher trim levels. There is a 9-inch touchscreen infotainment system, which offers wireless compatibility with Apple CarPlay and Android Auto and delivers sharp graphics and responsive performance.
The ventilated front seats came in handy during sweltering Delhi afternoons, and the 360-degree camera system made squeezing into tight spots shockingly simple.
Safety equipment is comprehensive as well, with six airbags, VSC and hill hold control standard on mid to top variants.Schedule servicing is affordable, at $300 a year.
Advanced driver assistance features, such as lane departure warning and autonomous emergency braking, are also available in the top trims – the kind you find more often in the high end.
“Toyota prioritizes functions which are actually used by the customers on daily basis,” Kumar said.
“They don’t have an endless list of gimmicks, but they do a great job and aim to do a good job of the features that they do have.
Toyota Hyryder The Fountain of Ownership Beyond the Sale
Possibly the most important part of the Hyryder value proposition is not a specific part at all – it’s the ability to tap into Toyota’s storied quality and tech support experience at a much higher value: one that puts your money into the gear itself.
The Toyota badge is a weighty proposition in the Indian market and the brand keeps hovering in and around the top-notch positions of every reliability and customer satisfaction survey.
This reputation also enables a lot of buyers to rationalize spending a bit more for a Toyota, with lower long-term costs and higher resale value anticipated to offset the initial price tag.
“I was looking at the Korean options,” said Anand Sharma, a Hyryder owner I spoke with on the phone and met in person at a Toyota service center in Ghaziabad.
“But I was convinced about Toyota’s reliability reputation. My brother’s Innova is still happily running after 2.8 lakh kms with ripples. That peace of mind is worth paying a bit extra for.”
This is a view echoed by a number of other owners I’ve spoken to in my research – the Toyota badge stands not only for status, but a sensible long-term investment.
And it is this joy of ownership that the Hyryder puts in reach of customers for a price point never before possible on Toyota SUVs.”
Toyota Hyryder Conclusion: The Fortuner At half the price
So after the week with the Urban Cruiser Hyryder, I get as to why it’s getting noticed and challenging perceptions about what’s even possible in this price league.
Toyota has managed to bring the essence of what makes its bigger SUVs attractive – striking design, quality of construction, refinement and dependability – within reach of more Indian families.
It would be a stretch to call it a “budget Fortuner” in terms of size, power and off-road stuff, but the family resemblance is clear both in pictures and from behind the wheel.
Toyota has finally developed a vehicle capable of providing the core brand values that have made their bigger SUV’s so successful, but at a cost that doesn’t price them out of the market for many.
For those buyers who want an SUV with a Toyota badge on the bonnet but can’t quite reach Fortuner territory, the Hyryder is not only a compromise – it’s an attractive alternative in its own right, with its own strengths.
And it’s an accomplishment that’s all the more notable given that competition has likely never been more intense among rival market segments.
