Welcome to the Toyota IQ Club

Online retailer, TheHut.com is one of the first UK organisations to adopt the new Toyota iQ as its company car. An incentive for star performers, as well as an on-car branding opportunity and an environmental statement, TheHut.com has issued the economical car to 15 staff.

A good example of this is desert adventurer and author Tom Sheppard who, when he is not travelling across the Sahara or writing his new book "Quiet for a Tuesday," is designing a unique colour scheme for his own iQ. Mocked-up on his computer and precisely executed by GSK Bodyworks, round the corner from his local Toyota Centre in Luton, it has generated nods and smiles from passers-by. Ex-RAF test-pilot Sheppard says the iQ's originality, engineering and detail design warms the cockles of his perfectionist, nit-picking heart.

Toyota's incredible iQ, the world's smallest four-seat car, gains a new engine option with the addition of a 1.33-litre Dual VVT-i petrol unit with Toyota Optimal Drive technology. Presented for the first time at the Geneva motor show, the new engine option will be available in the UK from late July, offered alongside iQ's established 1.0-litre VVT-i petrol engine.

The Toyota iQ may be the smallest four-seater car on the market, but is also one of the safest according to new independent crash testing results from Euro NCAP.

Euro NCAP, which has developed a new rating scheme which focuses on the vehicle's overall protection performance, awarded the tiny traffic buster 5-stars. iQ's British-built big brother, the new Avensis, also earned a 5-star rating.

 

There is no questioning iQ's status as one of the most fuel-efficient cars on the market, but a new hypermiling challenge has seen the tiny Toyota perform way beyond its official mpg figures.

Piloted by two of the team from the iQ blog, a standard iQ2 with a 1.0-litre VVT-i petrol engine, broke through 500 miles on a single tank of fuel. What makes the achievement all the more remarkable is that this was no finely tuned marathon attempt, but a gruelling drive through some of the most congested town centres in the south and midlands of England and Wales.

 

It is a common assumption that the smaller the car, the more vulnerable driver and passengers are in an accident. The new Toyota iQ - the world's smallest four-seat production model - is proof this need not be the case, providing an unprecedented level of active and passive safety protection for an A-segment model.

Toyota's guide to the interlinked engineering and design innovations in the remarkable new iQ city car concludes with details of its space-efficient slim seat design.

In its mission to build the world's first car to measure less than three metres long but with four seats inside, Toyota maximised every last millimetre of space.

 

The revolutionary Toyota iQ, the world's smallest four-seater passenger car, has won the 2008 Japan Car of the Year award by a landslide over rivals such as the Citroën C5, Audi A4 and Jaguar XF. The innovative iQ scored more than double the points of the second placed, receiving top marks from 39 of the 65 jurors who voted.

The judges praised the iQ for its space efficiency and design, particularly the iQ's capacity for seating four people within a body less than three metres long, as well as its combination of high levels of safety and low CO2 emissions.

 

A new, compact air conditioning unit is the subject of the fourth in a series of cut-paste-and-print guides to Toyota's design and engineering innovations for its new iQ, the world's smallest four-seat car.

In most cars the air conditioning/heater unit is a bulky component, housed behind the dashboard in front of the front seat passenger. Toyota engineers recognised that if they could make it smaller, it could be repositioned, freeing up valuable leg and knee room in the front section of the cabin.

 

The third instalment in Toyota's series of cut-paste-and-print guides to the ground-breaking design and engineering features behind the new iQ reveals details of the car's flat under-floor fuel tank.

The usual place for a car's fuel tank is beneath the rear seats, but in the compact interior of the iQ this would make it impossible for Toyota to achieve its goal of a sub-three-metre long car with four seats. The solution was to create a flat fuel tank, positioned beneath the vehicle floor.

 

The second in Toyota's series of cut-paste-and-print guides to the ground-breaking design and engineering features of the new iQ looks at the benefits gained from using a centre take-off steering gear.

By saving space under the bonnet, Toyota has been able to achieve exceptional room inside iQ, creating a car that is less than three metres long, yet has four seats on board. Using a centre take-off steering gear for the Electric Power Steering (EPS), a first for a Toyota vehicle, is a key element in achieving this ultra-compact design.

 

In spite of its small dimensions, iQ is the fruit of some very big ideas in how to design and engineer small cars. Success in creating a vehicle that is less than three metres long, yet has space for four seats on board was made possible thanks to a series of six interlinked technical and packaging innovations, pioneering work that rewrites the rulebook on car design.

In a series of six simple cut-paste-and-print guides, Toyota will explain how.
INNOVATION No1: The front-mounted differential

 

Order books are open for Toyota's revolutionary new iQ, with first deliveries to customers in January. An instant icon for modern urban motoring, iQ matches its advanced engineering and design with highly desirable equipment specifications: it's proof that thinking small no longer means thinking modest.

Toyota's iQ arrived in London earlier this month for an exhibition at the Royal College of Art and iMotor came along to investigate the interior space of this radical new city car.

iQ is less than three metres in length, yet has more interior space than a Yaris and is capable of carrying four people.

 

Toyota announced today that it has developed the world's first* SRS (Supplemental Restraint System) rear window curtain shield airbag to protect rear passengers' heads in the event of a rear-end collision.

The innovative airbag deploys from the roof lining above the rear window in the form of a curtain-like barrier. Together with the headrests, the airbag minimises impact to the head from a colliding vehicle or parts of the hit vehicle, thus helping to reduce the severity of injuries. Its use in the soon-to-be launched "iQ" ultra-compact four-seater is expected to approximately double the car's rear passenger head protection performance.

Toyota's revolutionary new iQ is to provide the inspiration for the finest new design talent. In a ground breaking partnership with the Royal College of Art, launched last night during the London Design Festival, Toyota is set to promote innovative design for urban living, using its new premium city car as a template for excellence.

The Toyota iQ concept, unveiled today at the Frankfurt Motor Show, marks a step change in small car design, challenging conventional thinking by being small, yet spacious and high in premium quality features. It's an ultra-compact vehicle that achieves exceptional space efficiency and is perfectly tailored to the lifestyle needs and environmental concerns of Europe's modern metropolitans.