Some­times a car you’ve never heard of is thrown up in the media as rumours, and some­times it’s thrown up at a motor­show. The Toy­ota iQ is the lat­ter, a strange look­ing small car that could be a (dimension-​​wise) smaller ver­sion of the Prius, though this is expected to run on a small gas or diesel motor below 1.5L.

Toyota iQ

The Toy­ota iQ. Click to enlarge.

Apart from look­ing some­what like a rab­bit,� the Echo, the iQ sports an inter­est­ing 3+1 con­fig­u­ra­tion, where the stan­dard 2 seater setup is trans­formed into 3 by a third seat is flipped up in the back. The car is expected to have a front mounted engine, with power deliv­ered through the front wheels.

The iQ is slated to go on sale in Europe in 2009, with no word on other markets.

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