Murray's Models - new T.25 in miniature

Gordon Murray's hotly anticipated revolutionary city car, codenamed the T.25, has been revealed in more detail in a series of models. The dioramas, revealed on Murray's website, illustrate some of the important features of Murray's new Mini and the reduction in environmental impact compared to other small cars.


If the amorphous green toy is anything to go by, the T.25 will be smaller even than the current king tiddler, the smart ForTwo, yet the car will apparently be safe enough to achieve a four-star Euro NCAP crash rating. Given that the four-seat Toyota iQ has just achieved the full five stars, and the smart has received four, this doesn't seem an unachievable feat. Some of the other figures are impressive too. The T.25 will apparently need only 20% of the factory space that a normal car requires, and twelve times as many body in whites can be transported in a shipping container as compared to the same for an average car. Lifetime CO2 from production to destruction is projected to be 40% lower, and the car will produce a tonne less of CO2 emissions per year.



The pictures also illustrate how there will be several variations on the same platform, and how three cars can fit into the average parking space.

The whole project is fascinating, and I join the rest of the automotive world in anticipation of viewing the finished product. Unfortunately at this stage, there is no word as to when this might be.

All images © Gordon Murray

72mpg from a Toyota iQ

Living up to manufacturer's fuel efficiency claims is something that cars generally struggle to do. There are exceptions to every rule however, and the Toyota iQ has become one of those exceptions with a small team managing to go 504.2 miles on 32 litres of petrol. This equates to 72mpg, when Toyota officially quote 65.7mpg. They managed to visit 19 British cities along the way. The half-way blog post is here and the start of the challenge is here. If the petrol iQ is capable of this much, one must wonder how much a diesel model could achieve...

The hypermiling iQ (Photo credit: ThisisiQ)

This shows what can be achieved not only by Toyota's impressive little city car, but also by careful driving technique. Doubtless many cars are capable of matching their claimed economy figures, but potentially hampered by the person behind the wheel.