Toyota's Tazz long-running hatchback has come to the end of its production life. The last unit came off the assembly line at Toyota SA's facility at Prospecton, near Durban, on July 5.
The company has no direct replacement but is planning to offer a selection of vehicles for less than R100 000, among them the one-litre Aygo hatchback.
A Toyota SA spokesman told motoring.co.za it was planning to bring in "other models in the under-R100 000 bracket" before the end of 2006 but declined to give details.
However, European demand is high for the Aygo, which is built in Kolin in the Czech Republic and shares its platform with the Citroen C1 and Peugeot 107, and it will not be available here until 2007 at the earliest.
In 1986 Toyota SA identified a gap in its product range; it had no entry-level five-door hatchback to compete with VW's CitiGolf - itself a South Africa-only derivative, of which 320 801 have been sold to date.
Toyota had a suitable model but it was only available as a three-door so it was asked to develop a five-door version model unique to the South African market.
A new model replaced the original Conquest when the sixth generation Corolla range was introduced to South Africa in October, 1988.
The 1988 Corolla remained current in South Africa until the introduction of the eighth-generation version in 1996 (the seventh-generation Corolla never came here).
The Tazz was introduced in August 1996 as a "budget" model in the Conquest hatchback range, which continued in production after the arrival of the new Corolla. A three-percent government rebate at the time for cars costing less than R40 000 allowed Toyota to launch the Tazz at R35 905.
Ten years later the price of the base model Tazz has more than doubled to R74 706 but it's still one of the cheapest cars on the local market.
From its introduction the Tazz was a major player in the entry level segment; in 2001 and 2002 it was the top-selling car in the country, averaging 2000 sales per month.
The Tazz brand became so successful that Toyota SA dropped the Conquest name in 2001 in favour of simply Tazz for the whole hatchback range, along with a styling update and a number of engineering changes.
It became a 1.3-litre range only in 2003; a special derivative was offered to rental fleets and the Carri panel van offered a versatile small delivery option.
The Tazz has been a family car, rental car, pool car, security response vehicle and student's car - but it has also been a racing car; the current SA Class A5 rally champion is a Tazz.