This one's being printed.


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A while ago I had a relationship, and for a while, it was good. We were pretty new to each other, excited, and everything was fresh and wonderful. But soon, things started to get less so wonderful, as we found out more about each other, we discovered that perhaps we weren't so perfect for each other after all. They constantly found new and often farcical things to lecture, torment, and threaten to leave me over; where I only had one problem, which was their constantly finding new and often farcical things to lecture, torment and threaten to leave me over. Needless to say it didn't last very long, and I was duly replaced.

This is all fine and easy to chop-and-change relationships, when you don't care who you're hurting. But what about in a car, where, unless you're the person I was in a relationship with, or just filthy rich, you can't just change your mind on the spur of the moment, without risking substantial financial losses? A car is something you have to buy knowing that the commitment can't just be dropped when something better comes along, or when you've decided that actually, you don't think you can put up with a green speedometer.

This brings me to the Toyota iQ. It's good, it's new, it's exiting, it's fresh and it's wonderful. Right from the start, it's a looker. It's both cute enough to make the Aygo look like a rhino, yet technical and angular enough to suit more typical male tastes too. On the inside, it's much the same story, with what's described as "techno-organic" styling. There's four seats, which can actually be used by humans, as long as they're small. There's also loads of gadgets, including ultra-compact air conditioning, and an MP3 CD Player. It's also only 2.98 metres long.

Clever bits, the key to its small size, are the inverted differential which allows the front wheels, and thus arches, to be moved forwards, increasing cabin space, without making the car any longer. The fuel tank is flat, and lays under the car. The dashboard is shaped for maximum space. The seats are thinner. It's also got an airbag in the back, which will cushion behind the rear seats in event of a rear-end collision, and partly owing to that, it's got 5 stars at Euro NCAP.

All this means that it's a car that you might want to buy. Of course, how could you resist? It's so cute and cool and modern and stylish. Like the Mini was a few years ago. But it isn't any more, and there's the problem. When this Toyota is a year old, all the cool, all the safe, and the clever will stop being exciting and fresh. As it's applied to other cars, it'll stop being wonderful. You'll start to pick faults, too. The understeer, for example. Or that it makes a long drive into a very wearisome ordeal. Or the lack of boot space. Or the lack of power.

Then you'll realise what you've bought. It may be a nice looker, trendy, and clever. But as a car, much like a tragically flawed relationship, it's not going to have that sparkle forever, and when that goes, it all goes. The iQ may be the work of visionary thinking, but it's not going to keep company with visionary drivers.