The story
History
The iQ was drawn in France. Toyota’s European design studio, ED² in Nice, shaped the iQ Concept that appeared at the Frankfurt Motor Show in September 2007 and then in Tokyo.source 1source 2 Japanese Wikipedia says its forms were worked out from mathematical models of spiral shells and ripples, and that the centre console and door trims took the manta ray as their motif.source 2 The name stood for intelligence quotient; Toyota added that the “i” meant individuality, innovation and intelligence, and the “Q” quality, the car’s cubic shape and a cue towards new ways of living.source 1source 2 Japanese Wikipedia names its forerunner plainly: the Smart Fortwo, the earlier car of a similar idea.source 2
Compact, not compromised.
Room by rearrangement
The Smart has two seats; the iQ set out to carry four. Toyota found the space by moving things rather than by stretching the car. A newly developed differential went ahead of the engine, the steering rack was mounted high with a central take-off, the fuel tank was flattened under the floor, the rear dampers were angled back, and a compact air-conditioning unit sat in the middle, behind an asymmetric dashboard. The seats were slim.source 1source 2 Because the dashboard is cut away on the passenger’s side, the front passenger sits further forward than the driver, and an adult can sit behind; the seat behind the driver is for a child or for bags, hence “3+1”.source 1source 2 The wheels went to the corners, 2,000 mm (79 in) apart in a body 2,985 mm long.source 1source 2
Its length was within the limit for a Japanese kei car, but at 1,680 mm (66 in) it was far wider than the kei limit of 1,480 mm, and its engines were too large, so in Japan it was registered as an ordinary small car.source 1source 2 It is also 15 mm longer than the Fiat Nuova 500, the yardstick of a microcar on this site, and is included all the same, as a defining small car of its time. It came with nine airbags as standard, one of them, by English Wikipedia’s account, the world’s first curtain airbag for the rear window, to protect the heads of rear passengers if the car was hit from behind.source 1
A prize before a sale
A production-specification prototype was shown at Geneva in March 2008, and the finished car at the Paris show that October.source 1source 2 In Japan the honours came before the customers. On 6 November 2008 the iQ won the Good Design Grand Award, the Prime Minister’s prize, the second Toyota to do so after the Prius in 2003, and on 11 November it was named Japan Car of the Year for 2008–2009, nine days before it went on sale.source 2source 3 From 20 November it was sold only through Toyota’s Netz dealers, and in Japan it wore the Netz emblem rather than Toyota’s. The first Japanese cars all had the 1.0-litre three-cylinder and a CVT, and Toyota hoped to sell 2,500 a month.source 2
Europe had it from January 2009, with the 1.0 and a five-speed manual or CVT; the 1.33-litre four followed at Geneva in March, with a six-speed manual and Stop & Start, and a 1.4-litre diesel of 90 PS joined the range.source 1source 2 It was not cheap. In Britain it cost about £10,000, more than the larger Aygo, and in Japan its price beside kei cars and the Vitz was blamed when sales fell short of the target in 2009.source 1source 2
Toyota kept adding versions in Japan. In August 2009 came the 1.3-litre 130G; the 100X 2 Seater, with luggage space in place of the rear seats and its suspension retuned for the new balance; and the GAZOO Racing tuned by MN, or GRMN: 100 cars, sold out in about a week.source 2 In July 2012 the GRMN Supercharger followed, with more than 30 per cent more power and torque and a close-ratio gearbox; its 100 were gone by September.source 1source 2
Scion, Aston Martin and the eQ
North America had the car as the Scion iQ, on sale from October 2011 as a 2012 model, with only the 1.3 and the CVT, and 3,051 mm long.source 1source 2 In Britain it became, improbably, an Aston Martin. To lower the average carbon-dioxide figure of its range, Aston Martin shipped iQs from Takaoka to Gaydon and retrimmed them inside and out as the Aston Martin Cygnet, sold from 2011 until September 2013.source 1source 2
An electric version was meant to be more. In September 2012 Toyota cut its plan from 600 cars to about 100, citing customers’ worries over range and charging time, and from December the eQ, with a 47 kW motor and a 12 kWh battery under the floor, went to Japanese local authorities and companies at ¥3.6 million.source 1source 2 The first 30 of the American version went in March 2013 to the University of California, Irvine, for its car-sharing fleet.source 1 That year Britain’s Vehicle and Operator Services Agency named the iQ the three-year-old car most likely to pass its first MOT test.source 1
The end
European sales peaked at 44,282 in 2009 and had fallen below 1,000 by 2015, when the Scion iQ also ended.source 1 English Wikipedia ends production in December 2015, without a source; Japanese Wikipedia gives 25 March 2016, and says Japanese sales ended on 4 April 2016, with the last stock gone by the end of that month.source 1source 2 There was no direct successor. In 2019 Toyota licensed the eQ to the Chinese start-up Singulato, which showed it as the iC3, but it was never mass-produced, and Singulato went bankrupt in 2023.source 1source 2 That same year Toyota and Daihatsu disclosed irregularities in safety-test procedures that affected iQs for Japan and Europe, while stating that the cars still met the legal standards.source 1
