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Automatic steering control. Radar-guided braking intervention. Two hours spent thumbing through an instruction manual as accessible as James Joyce's Ulysses, just to set the clock. Increasingly, driver and car are becoming semi-detached entities, split by a wall of technical advances - and practical regressions.

It took the Toyota Aygo to begin to reseal that bond, to bring us back to basics with few of the hardships that small, simple cars can inflict on their owners. The Aygo is unashamedly pared-down, with a sub-Elise kerbweight and a sub-supermini price tag.

It's a masterpiece of cunningly concealed budget control, of corners cut with no conspicuous sense of loss felt by those who find themselves inside it. In fact, it makes you wonder why more cars aren't built this way.

The fuel tank is tiny, because the fuel economy is so good. The large rear screen can be fliipped up, saving on the weight and complexity of a conventional hatch.

Even on the five-door version, the back pair of side windows pop open for ventilation rather than winding down, again to preserve weight and reduce cost. And yet the bodywork is galvanised, and EuroNCAP still handed over a four-star crash test rating.

There's no waste to be found anywhere, but then that's what makes the Aygo so much fun to drive - it's sharp, awake, agile and connected to its driver. And livelier in real-world driving than the raw figures might suggest it should be.

So our overall Top Gear Awards winner this year is the Toyota Aygo, alongside the Bugatti Veyron (yes, we can see the irony - and one costs one hundredth of the price of the other). But not quite in partnership with the Citroen C1 and Peugeot 107, cars that are the same save for some small visual tweaks and marketing spin.

Toyota did the development work behind the B-Zero project, then set-up and now runs the factory that builds these cars. This time around, the moral victory rests safely in its hands.

Peter Grunert

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