Category: City Cars 
Price Range: £10,495 to £11,615
Brilliant packaging, low emissions, big-car feel, well-equipped.
Manual's long gearing stunts performance, hefty price, cheap-feeling interior.
New approach to city car compromised by intimidating pricetag and lack of fun.
Let's be frank, the Toyota iQ is comprehensively outdriven by most of the competition, not least our new class benchmark, the Ford Ka.
That said, in its natural environment in the city it's damn-near perfect.
The lengths Toyota engineers have gone to suit the iQ to its urban surroundings are astonishing. To improve packaging Toyota took the novel approach of fitting the differential ahead of the engine and this allowed the wheels to be mounted as far forward as possible. That lengthened the wheelbase, which improved stability and increased passenger space. As well as that, close attention has been paid to keep the engine and ancillaries as narrow as possible to give the iQ a turning circle that would put a smile on the face of London cabbies.
Out of the city the iQ makes less sense. It just isn't as fun or talented as its bigger rivals, but it is refined even when cruising at top speed.
For the UK there's a choice of a five-speed manual or a CVT (£1,000 extra) for the 67bhp, 1.0-litre three-cylinder. Both are slow and need working hard to keep up with traffic. Unusually, the manual feels the slower of the two, even though it's a second quicker over the 0-60mph sprint. A yawn-inducing 14.1 seconds passes before the needle gets to the 60mph line.
This is the engineering trade-off that comes from designing the car to meet the ambitious target of 99g/km of carbon dioxide.
To maintain even modest progress you have to delay your upchanges because the gearing is far too long. Second takes you well over 65mph and third, 80mph plus.
CVT does a better job and it digs into the iQ's meagre torque peak of 67lb-ft that's delivered at a very lofty 4,800rpm.
