The “Break it Down” Blog

Thanks to Patrick Norton for the heads up on this: Just a year after it was unveiled, the Toyota iQ (super-compact) car won the Japanese Car of the Year award.

The iQ is a super-compact car targetted directly at the Smart Car fortwo market, offering a similarly sized car that is designed to seat 4 people instead of 2. The iQ’s ultra-compact design offers fuel economy in the form of almost 60 MPG, while obvious concessions are made with regards to engine performance:

• 998 cc 3 cylinder
• 67 bhp (50 kW/68 PS)
• 67 lb·ft (91 N·m) at 4800 rpm
• 0-100 km/h 14.1 seconds.

The car was designed from the ground up to use the newest in “miniturization technologies” to keep everything in the car small, tucked away and compact which still maintaining the highest in safety ratings. The iQ currently enjoys the Euro NCAP’s 5-star safety rating.

Some of the design decisions that allowed the car to stay compact are as follows:

• Newly designed differential allows the iQ to keep the wheels at the extreme corners of the car with very short overhang.
• A flat fuel tank that rides right under the floor
• Heater and AC unit have been shrunk, allowing front-seating to be moved forward, closer to the windshield.
• Read-window air bags have been added to address rear-seated passengers being much closer to the rear window now

The car is set to launch in the UK in January of 2009 with a £10,000 price tag (roughly $14,800 today), an excellent starting point for such an economic car IMO (last time I checked the Smart fortwo was hovering in the $22-24,000 range, which I thought was rediculous for a golf cart).