Toyota iQ

Utter brilliance from Toyota – the car the Smart ForFour should have been

• Comfort

  Ok, so this is a small car, but the attendant tiny terror worries are unusually absent. The wheel-at-each-corner Toyota ‘super-stance' helps with the ride quality and handling, but on the motorway the iQ feels like a much bigger car. Then you realise that you can reach the back window from the front seat. Neat. It rides well, and seating for three is bizarrely spacious for three in a car that is under 3m long. The fourth seat is for small people or kids only, but for getting across town with friends, there's nothing quite like it. 

  

• Performance

  There are two engine choices - a lovely little 1.0-litre triple with 67bhp and 67lb ft of torque, and a 1.3-litre four-pot petrol with 97bhp and 92lb ft. The 1-litre sounds weak; in reality it really works. Top speed is just under the ton and 0-62mph is 15.3 seconds - and for such a small car it actually feels pretty sprightly - it'll hold 80mph on the m-way easily too. The bigger engine does 0-62mph in 11.6 seconds and tops out at 106mph. Nice.

  

• Cool

  At the moment the iQ is just glorious. Everyone wants a small rational car, and the iQ isn't a retro homage or a pastiche. Modern, quirky and just a little bit special.

  

• Quality

  The one thing where the iQ isn't totally on the pace. The early cars have shoddy, cheap plastics on the interiors that really jar with the premium feel of the rest of the car. There is no doubt at all over the quality of the grubby bits, but why, oh why couldn't they spend more than 7p on the door cards?

  

• Handling

  Toyota's packaging solutions push the wheels out into the corners just like the original Mini - and we all know how well that went around corners. The iQ isn't quite in that league - but it's more fun than you think. One of the reasons is that the iQ is as wide as a Ford Focus (even though it measures in at under 3m) and so the plan view is essentially square. Towns become playgrounds. 

  

• Practicality

  Another superb coup from the iQ here. As a city car it simply cannot be beaten. When you don't need the rear seats you can fold them over to form a bigger boot. Not massive, but definitely useful. And then when you need to furtle around with friends and still park, you can do all that too. Interestingly, there are lots of places in Europe where cars under 3m have special parking spots where they are designed to park front/back on to the kerb; the iQ is the only four-seat car that can do it.

  

• Running costs

  A tiny triple will easily get 65-odd mpg. On test, with hard driving, the car returned nearly 60 - which is very good. Insurance is cheap and the car will be very reliable if Toyota's reputation is anything to go by. The only slight fly in the ointment is the high initial purchase price; the iQ starts at £9495 with the higher-spec ‘2' version a grand more.