Scion iQ that I spotted on a car lot.
The Scion iQ. A car that got a lot of press when it was introduced for the 2012 model year. It was the nation’s smallest four-seater car. I was in love with the diminutive size of it when they came out, but they’ve all but fallen off a cliff. When was the last time you saw one? How many did they even sell come to think of it? All I see from that class of Great Recession autos are Smart cars and Fiat 500s, if we include electrics in the mix. That got me thinking of another car that did that decades before, the Subaru 360.
In 1968, Malcolm Bricklin let loose the Subaru 360 to the unsuspecting American public. It too was a caricature vehicle in size and was outsold by its competition. Did it revolutionize anything? Not really, but neither did the iQ. They were both Japanese K cars that made it stateside with sky high hopes and the notion that there’s a sucker born every minute.
An Apt license plate for such a car. It looks like an underfed Beetle
So, I’m being a little rough on them. It’s tough love, I think they’re cute in a dinky way, but they don’t make sense in the US. Let’s compare the two. First and foremost, they’re inexpensive cars. They would almost be guaranteed to sell assuming it came out at the right time. The problem is they didn’t. The Subaru was a couple of years too early, and the iQ too late.
The late 60’s were still seeing the last of the economic boom. A recession didn’t happen until around 1970 and the oil crisis wasn’t for a few more years. Aspirational cars for the youth typically included the muscle cars or alternative imports like the Beetle. Then there was the 360. For $1327 sticker, you could get one including the $30 dealer prep fee. Was it worth saving the $372 over a new VW Beetle or a used car or literally anything that can do faster than 56 miles per hour? Raise of hands who would buy one. Bueller? Bueller?
As for the iQ it was a little too slow for the market. Turns out the geniuses who delivered the car to the Japanese Domestic Market in 2008 couldn’t figure out how to smuggle it into the US until 2012. Riding on the coattails of the Smart car, they tried to skate by on that cachet. However, the Smart managed to sell to everyone in that niche already, and the market had recovered by 2010. At $15,265 it wasn’t exactly a bargain either. The equally small Smart was nearly a grand cheaper as was the roomier Ford Fiesta, the nicer Fiat 500 was about $200 more, and Scion’s own dealer had cars like the xB in the bracket. Oh well, so it missed small car heaven and cash for clunkers, but I doubt the lots would have received any more Explorers in exchange for it. At least it managed to come at a time when fuel prices were still pretty high. What kind of mileage did these little duds achieve anyway?
With a manual transmission these things are real crackers.
Starting with the iQ you can expect an EPA combined estimate of 37 miles per gallon. Contemporary reviews seem to state a reasonable 35 mpg in testing and real-world driving conditions. Not exactly great, but on par with what you might get for the price point new. Those new cars were all bigger than it, though. Also hybrids were out and achieving better fuel economy too.
For the little Subaru however, it starts to get bleak. Road and Track saw 28 miles per gallon in their test of the 360 while Consumer Reports managed 30 mpg. That’s in a two-stroke engine that consumes oil in addition to the gasoline, so add that to the budget. Did I mention they claimed 66 miles per gallon? A VW Beetle of both the 1960s and 2010s is said to average around 25 miles per gallon. Is that a win? Before you decide, let me introduce some of the power figures. After all, efficiency includes the economy and power of a drivetrain.
Back to the bullying we go. A 1968 Beetle 1500 makes 51 horsepower. 0-50 takes about 15 seconds completing the quarter mile in 22. The Subaru 360 with its 25 horsepower does 0-50 in roughly 37 seconds. The quarter mile would take 28 seconds to complete with a trap speed of 47 miles per hour. Even by decades prior the Subaru was slow. I didn’t even use the standard 0-60 mph benchmark because the 360 simply wasn’t capable of those speeds. 56 miles per hour is the top speed. That is of course after the 600 mile break-in period at a top speed of 30mph, and the additional 600 miles at 45mph max. Pitiful.
VW Beetle photo by Daniel Stern.
With 1.3 liters and a CVT motivating the iQ, we can expect reasonable power. 0-60 takes about 12 seconds according to Scion. A manual transmission was omitted for whatever reason. I guess that’s why the Ford Fiesta dusts it to sixty. Expect to knock nearly three to four seconds off that time.
So these cars aren’t about power, fuel efficiency, and certainly not safety. Cheap costs come at the cost of size and content making it a hard proposition even in the compact category. So who were they made for? A market so small that it simply doesn’t exist this side of the globe? My argument is that they’re advertising stunts. Allow me to explain.
The Subaru 360 was a gimmick by Bricklin to continue his relationships with Japanese Fuji Heavy Industries or Subaru. I’ll let Paul summarize the venture:
“That great serial huckster-shyster Malcom Bricklin needed something new to import after Fuji heavy Industries stopped building the Rabbit scooters he had been selling in the US. When he went to Japan to visit Fuji and saw the 360, he knew this was it; or more like the only option he had. He agreed to import 50,000 of them, and that turned out to be a disaster. And a foreshadowing of his future failures with his Bricklin car, the Yugo, and Chinese cars too.”
What Bricklin created when he was putting his own name on a car. I’m not entirely sure it’s better if I’m honest.
Yeah, so not exactly something great. You know what it did do though? It kept his name in the headlines and allowed him to market something else new. Was it something never before seen on the market? Yes. Would an educated buyer purchase it? Not likely if they knew that it only made it here because it was small enough to slide under the red tape.
The Scion was a product filler brought over years after its introduction. The xD was pretty close to the smallest thing that Americans would accept when it comes to compact motoring. It just didn’t have that pretentious theme that the Mercedes owned Smart had. The iQ would try to earn that with its name but failed. What I think may have helped was the stories of the Aston Martin Cygnet. That’s right; I’m whipping that bad boy out to drag it through the mud too.
This is Aston’s LM002
The idea of that odd venture was that Aston Martin needed a compact car to lower their corporate environmental impact. What they decided to do was plaster some chrome to a Toyota. Just an added publicity stunt to the already hilariously dorky car. A car so bad that Aston used it to make a statement. How’s that for a legacy?
A little sidebar is that I would love to know why they chose that car. Did Toyota give them an offer they simply couldn’t refuse? A use for the iQ? They were already using Volvo parts as they were both owned by Ford for a while. Aston would start working with Mercedes a year or two after its conception. Would a Smart-based Aston hurt the Brabus Smart? I guess we’ll never know, but I digress…
If you flip over the grill, it looks pretty close to Aston’s. I suppose the problem is they don’t do rear engine do they?
So what would compel people to buy these? They’re cute, but my true guess is their shared use of space efficiency. Both are legendarily small by US standards of their time and were capable of seating four people. If you needed to carpool to the nearest train station 2 miles away with three other people, I suppose these were your guys. Assuming you hated the Mini Cooper and Fiat 500.
Your rear passengers must really be desperate to get back there
Here is all of your luggage space
Presumably she was paid to get back there
Additional Reading:
CC Driving Review (With Video): Subaru 360 – Can I Even Fit In It?
Curbside Classic: 1968 Subaru 360 Deluxe – The Legend Of The Ladybird
COAL: 1969 Subaru 360 – Really
Curbside Classic: 2012 Aston Martin Cygnet – Aston’s Bird-Brained Scheme
I loved these when they came out, but with my job and family situation they were not a viable option. I did sit in one at an auto show and managed to fit into the backseat. At best this was a three seater, you had to sit sideways in back…and that’s only if your were short like me at 5′ 5″. I’m driving the CUV version of one of these now, a Ford Ecosport.
The CC effect is still upon us. I saw an iQ yesterday on a dog walk. They are very rare and they can’t have sold many cars in Canada. It seems like consumers in North America want a larger, more capable car and the iQ was not it. Neither the iQ or the Smart ever sold in the quantities to make them profitable. Even when I was in Europe in 2023 I didn’t see many Smart cars.
I have recently seen both an iQ and a Bricklin, white no less. On the road. Subaru 360? No recent sightings, not for the last decade … or five.
A nice set of comparisons.
I think the Subaru is a neat little car, but you’re correct in that it’s so impractical in terms of its speed/power that there’s simply no way that it could be taken out safely on American roads. Certainly not now, probably not in 1968 either.
One thing I’d add or say about the Subaru, which ties into your final photo, is that I suspect that riding in the rear seat of one of those is not quite as painful as it would be in the Scion. It wouldn’t be a consistently joyful experience for adults, but in the same way that regular people back then really did ride in the back seat of Minis, Fiats, Simcas, and of course VW Beetles, it was possible and folks really did purchase those cars with the expectation (and reality) that the rear seat would be regularly used. I just don’t think that’s possible nowadays with something like that Scion. The actual room is less, and people (especially Americans) are much (much) bigger.
I have a 2010 Toyota IQ as my daily driver. 1.0 engine with the CVT, and the most expensive version with keyless entry and start, automatic headlights and wipers, and climate control.
A perfect little car for my daily 20 miles commute, (5 miles highway, 15 in the city) and besides that surprising funny to drive once you understand how to drive it.
Not the fastest car around, but it’s definitely different, and being a Toyota, more or less indestructible.
‘I have a 2010 Toyota IQ as my daily driver. 1.0 engine with the CVT, and the most expensive version with keyless entry and start, automatic headlights and wipers, and climate control’.
That sounds pretty much like the iQ my 82 years old mother drives, 5-speed manual though!
It’s probably perfect for an 82 year old person who still drives. And I don’t say that with any malice or snark…I just mean that she probably doesn’t undertake many highway trips, or have the need to haul people or stuff, or do much beyond getting one place on another on more or less urban streets. (and more power to your mom for still being behind the wheel at 82!!)
The sad fact is that the market cannot appreciate that different people need different vehicles for different usage cases. It seems here in the States we assume that everyone needs a gigantic vehicle to do all sorts of heroic things (towing huge boats/trailers, fording mighty rivers, hauling the entire Cub Scout troop, regularly bringing home the 72″ monitors from the big box store, etc.) and thus should have those vehicles at all times. When in fact, something like the IQ would serve many folks’ actual needs quite well.
‘I just mean that she probably doesn’t undertake many highway trips, or have the need to haul people or stuff, or do much beyond getting one place on another on more or less urban streets’.
Correct on all points!
Sitting in an iQ, you think you’re in a compact car (segment-wise). Turn your head around and the hatch couldn’t be at a shorter distance. Fold down the rear seats, plenty of space for groceries and such. Furthermore, an iQ has the turning radius of a wheelbarrow.
You ask “who was this designed for?” Well, it was designed in France for Europeans, where the Smart at the time was selling fairly well. Europeans that live in cities prize space efficiency and short cars that give them a parking advantage. The iQ was rather brilliant in this regard; only slightly longer than a Smart, but able to take two kids along too. Toyota felt that they could do a better Smart, and they succeeded. Smoother engines, no jerky automated-manual like the Smart, more room, and of course Toyota reliability, which means a lot all over the globe.
BTW, the iQ is not a kei car; it’s too wide and the engine is too big. It was designed primarily for Europe, although some were sold in Japan too.
Yes, the iQ did not sell well here in the US. But then neither did the Smart; Americans have different preferences when it comes to the size of their cars and trucks, as is all too obvious.
Just because the iQ didn’t sell well in the US does not mean it was an inferior product. It took some rather brilliant engineering and design to make a FWD car this short, and seat four.
The iQ wasn’t a “product filler” in the US; it was simply an experiment to see if American would buy something this small. Perhaps that answer was inevitable, but I give Toyota props for trying. There’s several in my part of town and owners tend to like them.
As to the Aston Martin Cygnet, it wasn’t a publicity stunt but an effort to reduce AM’s average corporate fuel consumption. The EU has CO targets for manufacturers too. AM bought the iQ because it was of course very small and efficient, and it’s not a total stretch to think that some AM owners in London might like to have an AM branded mini to drive in the city.
The Subaru 360 was very much not up to US standards in terms of performance and such, which explains why it failed. The iQ performed just fine, but Americans had fallen in love with ever-bigger cars and trucks, so it didn’t sell. That’s the difference.
The answer is “Yaris”.
Sold at the same dealership, for not insignificantly less money. Legitimately sat 4 people. Available with manual transmission or an (ugh) 4-speed conventional automatic. More cargo space. Faster (not by much). In real-world use, a stick Yaris probably got the same MPG as an iQ.