The super-small, super-efficient Toyota iQ is coming to America as a Scion.
So says Motor Trend, the old gray lady of car magazines. Now, the iQ is either cute as a bug or as homely as a mud fence, depending upon your perspective. Either way the car headed to America will more aggressively styled than the concept that rolled out at the Geneva Motor Show last year while staying belligerently small and antagonistically frugal with fuel.
And if you don't like it, maybe you'll like the version Aston Martin is cooking up.
Just as everyone -- including us here at Autopia -- suspected, Toyota will slap a Scion badge on the iQ and give it the more aggressive styling that brand is known for. Small, and very, very easy on gas, the iQ has a unique 3+1 seating arrangement and is due on these shores in 2011 or 2012 according to MT.
The iQ has over the past year been touted with a bunch of paltry engines, ranging from a fire-breathing 1.0-liter inline three-cylinder to a smoking hot 1.4-liter diesel four-banger. Now, you could fit something as big as a 1.6 liter engine in there, according to Chief engineer Hiroki Nakajima, but we're not ones to, um, encourage such things. The iQ will also feature a mileage-enhancing stop-start system, and should get around a highly impressive 56 mpg. And bringing it in as a Scion makes sense for the American market.
What makes less sense is the news that Aston Martin is getting its own version of the iQ. Yes, that Aston Martin, the people who make cars for the "shaken, not stirred" crowd. The Aston Martin making the $1.4-million One-77. Aston's version is called the Cygnet, and gets a very Aston looking nose treatment, as shown below, and is supposed to be "the world's first luxury city car," whatever that means. It's just a concept at this point, but Aston says it could become reality "in the not-to-distant future."
Mechanically the Cyneyt will be the same as the 'Yota, so don't expect some Mullsanne burning velocities from this little chap. Still, if the clay mockup is any indication,the Aston Martin iQ will look a lot better than the Scion iQ.
Main photo: Toyota. Second photo: Aston Martin
