Toyota iQ Car Review

Facts At A Glance
Car: Toyota iQ
Prices: £10,158-£12,185 - on the road INSURANCE GROUPS: 2-3
Emissions: 99-113g/km
Performance: [1.0] 0-60mph 14.7s / Max Speed 93mph
Fuel Consumption: [1.0] (combined) 64.2mpg
Safety: Nine airbags, ABS, EBD
Dimensions: length/width/height 2985/1680/1500mm

SMART THINKING

Our Rating: 7.6 / 10

Toyota’s iQ offers something quite new in the citycar sector. Jonathan Crouch drives it

Less than three metres long but packed with intriguing design features, the Toyota iQ is an unashamedly upmarket citycar that’s the size of the smallest urban runabout, has the performance of a supermini and the cabin quality of a family hatchback. Designed to seat three adults and one child, the interior finish and exterior detailing are several notches above the citycar norm – as is the price. Still, for those smart enough to seek a tiny car that’s anything but tiny in its outlook, it could be just right.

Just as Toyota’s Lexus luxury division takes conventional designs, adds a dash of hi-tech and repositions them up-market as cars you might aspire to, so the company’s iQ citycar offers urban dwellers a cleverer product they can feel better about owning. You can see why people being forced to downsize might grab an opportunity to do so without sacrificing comfort and style. This is the world’s biggest car maker really showing what it can do.

Many citycars are much better at longer distances these days but they’re still most at home in urban surroundings. As is the iQ of course. Yet this is also a car that’s more comfortable than any town tot we’ve driven when it comes to stretching its legs. At higher speeds on windy motorways, you don’t get blown around like a leaf in a gale and the cabin’s refined enough to enable you to converse in normal tones right up to the legal speed limit. Many superminis can’t even manage that.

The ride’s generally pretty good, though it does crash a little through major road faults. At higher speeds though, you feel like you’re in a larger car, especially around corners where the Toyota feels flat and stable. Refinement depends a little upon the engine you choose, the 1.0-litre petrol unit we tried offering up the slightly louder but not unpleasant thrum typical of three cylinder powerplants. The four cylinder 1.33-litre engine is more relaxed.

Around town, the steering’s electric assistance makes manoeuvring the car simplicity itself and the tiny square-cut dimensions, minimal front and rear overhangs and astonishingly tight 3.9m turning circle mean that it’s easy to edge into even the tiniest parking places. City people comparing this 3 to 4-seater car with the cruder, cheaper but comparably-sized two-seater smart fortwo will doubtless want to consider the 6-speed CVT automatic version. Though this gearbox takes the edge off performance that was hardly neck-snapping in the first place (rest to sixty takes nearly 15s on the way to just 93mph in the 1.0-litre version most will choose) its demeanour is a world removed from that of the jerky smart.

If you thought the two-seat smart car to be well packaged, then you’ll marvel at how Toyota has been able to fit in room for three adults and a child into a package hardly any bigger. How have they managed it? Well, the big 15-inch alloy wheels really are exactly at each corner of the car, so the space in between is virtually all dedicated to people. This wasn’t easy to achieve: the front wheels and their driveshafts had to be repositioned in front of the engine and gearbox rather than in their usual place behind. As a result, the typical distance from the tip of the front bumper to the accelerator has been reduced by 120mm, freeing up that extra cabin space. The iQ’s classy-looking too: the wraparound rear glass, the smoked headlamp units and the door mirrors with inbuilt indicators all position this as an up-market small car choice.

Step inside and the clever ideas continue. The asymmetric dashboard was designed to open up the whole cabin area, scooped out ahead of the front seat passenger so much that legroom is acceptable even when the seat is pushed right forward to allow for a large six foot adult to sit comfortably behind. It’s a different story in the seat behind the driver of course but a child would probably be fine there for short distances. Alternati