Toyota IQ

But when I heard that Toyota – the biggest and most innovative car company in the world – had decided to have a crack at a minimini car, I sat up and took notice.

After all, the Japanese mastered the art of miniaturisation in the late-fifties when Sony figured out how to make a transitorised radio the size of a bar of soap. If anyone could make a great ultra-compact car then it had to be them.

And now the finished product is here, Toyota must be pleased as punch.

The iQ is so much more than just a clever name designed to out-smart the Smart. It’s probably the most innovative small car since the Mini. And I mean the first Mini, not the hip but bloated pastiche BMW makes.

Clever thinking has liberated an amazing amount of room inside this tiny car.

Toyota says the iQ is the world’s smallest four-seater and it is absolutely right. Seeen from the front it looks like any other small car, cute and compact with a nice wide stance for maximum elbow room.

But walk around to see it from the side and you’ll be amazed.

The iQ looks like half-a-car, as if someone has designed a normal hatch then taken a chainsaw to the bodywork just behind the front door.

On the road it takes up marginally more room end-to-end than a bicycle.

Yet the iQ can still carry three adults and a child cocooned in a body built to five-star European crash protection standards.

How did Toyota manage this seemingly impossible trick? By starting with a blank sheet of paper and redfining every aspect of the motorcar, that’s how.

The fuel tank isn’t a boxy tank at all. It is almost flat (just 120mm high) and it fits beneath the floor, thereby helping liberate precious inches in the boot.

Every opportunity has been taken to maximise the cabin space. The asymetric dashboard is further forward on the passenger side, allowing Toyota to move the seat forward and freeing up room for an adult to sit behind.

Obviously the driver can’t do this but there is still a small seat for a child behind.

The steering wheel has a flat bottom for extra knee room, the seat backs are as thin as Toyota can make them – this alone liberated an extra 40mm of space – and there’s even room for a storage tray beneath the rear seats.

Steering-mounted audio controls allowed for a slimmer than usual centre console minus the usual dials and buttons.

Even the doors use a new kind of window-lifter mechanism so they can be thinner, helping improve elbow room.

Space has also been created by locating the gearshift and parking brake almost side by side, giving rear seat passengers more room to extend their feet between the front seats.

The front passenger seat can be slid far enough forward to ensure that three 190cm (6ft 3in) tall adults, plus a child or extra luggage, can be comfortably accommodated.

Both rear seats can be folded down to increase boot capacity to 238 litres.

Mind you, with both seats in position capacity is an almost comical 32 litres, which isn’t even wide enough for my briefcase!

But the real battle of the bulge has been waged on the mechanical front where the air conditioning unit is extra small and the differential – the component which allows the wheels to rotate at different speeds and thereby go round corners – is a new design which pushes the front wheels out to the furthest extent of the body.

This added another 100mm of space and, as the saying goes, every little helps.

It looks good, too. Flared wheel arches and a deep bumper give the iQ real road presence, and that’s without the wow factor caused by the tiny dimensions.

It’s not short on safety equipment, though. There are nine airbags, including an unusual under-thigh bag on the passenger seat, and the world’s first rear curtain airbag, giving the lie to the suspicion that small cars are more dangerous in a crash.

Of course, all this clear thinking and high tech costs money. About the only thing that isn’t small about the iQ is the price, which matches more conventional superminis.

But down-sizing is no longer just for the terminally hard up.

Toyota continues to offer the Aygo for drivers who want a small car that costs pocket money.

The iQ is a premium product with a price to match, although some of the questionable plastics used on inside feel more Mini Mk 1 than Mercedes Benz.

But it’s the way it drives that is the real eye-opener.

There’s nothing radical about the 1.0-litre engine, it’s the same three-pot design used in the Aygo, but housed in the iQ it feels (and sounds) much more refined.

Around town the iQ is sensational, squeezing through the smallest gaps, seeking out parking spaces that others (Smart excepted) could never contemplate.

But it’s the way the iQ goes out of town that marks it out as something special.

On a run down to York it never felt overawed or out of its depth on the A1.

It sticks to the road like glue and shrugs off strong side winds with distain. In fact, it feels like a much bigger car altogether, which is the really remarkable achievement in my view.

It took Toyota five years of hard graft to make the iQ a reality.

Toyota reckons the finished product is one of the most important cars it has ever launched, as innovative in its own way as the hybrid Prius was ten years ago.

In these days of soaring petrol costs (there won’t be a diesel, it doesn’t need one) the iQ could be just about the smartest move the world’s most succesful car company has ever made.