When friends say your Fiesta is just too small....

[scotman]

Introduce them to the Peel P50! Only slightly larger than the little tykes car that 4 year old booger eater next door trolls his parents driveway in!
I tried to get a link to the 12 years old BBC Top Gear segment to stick with no luck.
It's titled "The smallest car in the world at the BBC".
It's hilarious! My favorite Clarkson remark? "She's got quite a nice bottom..... I.Said that out loud didn't i?"

 

[econoboxrocks]

Saw this awhile ago. The Fiesta is a Cadillac by comparison.

 

[LionsTooth]

I did two Isetta ground-up restorations back in the ealry 90s; the yellow one came from two, the orange one was much more complete when I started. Sooooo damn fun to drive! They weigh 750lbs. dry; 12hp; on a good day it might go 56mph downhill with a tail wind. But the really scary thing was the lack of brakes.

 

[scotman]

Those Isetta were something else. Designed to use minimal amount of metal because postwar Italian industry was destroyed. That was a solution to provide transportation that was better than riding a bike.
Hey LT! Could you give a try to get that Top Gear segment Clarkson did to linky here? I am getting nowhere with it.

 

[LionsTooth]

 

[scotman]

Just one of those things going down the street makes people stop in their tracks and stare. And smile. It is said that the Fiat jolly has a similar effect.
To the 21st century person, those tiny cars make no sense at all. I still love them.

 

[LionsTooth]

Yes....lots of smiles and pointing and "what is that?" shouted over the loud single 300. It was pretty hard to drive around, sometimes. People pull up alongside and won't pass, so changing lanes is a pain. My youngest still talks fondly about when she would ride in it. I drove it every Friday to work. Wishing I never sold it, but I needed to eat and have a roof over our heads.

 

[LionsTooth]

Introduce them to the Peel P50! Only slightly larger than the little tykes car that 4 year old booger eater next door trolls his parents driveway in! I tried to get a link to the 12 years old BBC Top Gear segment to stick with no luck. It's titled "The smallest car in the world at the BBC". It's hilarious! My favorite Clarkson remark? "She's got quite a nice bottom..... I.Said that out loud didn't i?"

 

[scotman]

The P 50 is like driving a cartoon character. I was just reading that it is being produced again. This time as an E.V. i would have to add a smoke generator to provide the necessary blue cloud out of the tail!

 

[LionsTooth]

Not likely it would ever come to the US; too many fed safety laws. The Smart car is as small as they were willing to go. There was talk around 2010 or bringing back the Isetta. It was killed because there is no market support when most don't care about how much they pay for gas and the market is SUVs, not small commuter cars.

 

[scotman]

Not likely it would ever come to the US; too many fed safety laws. The Smart car is as small as they were willing to go. There was talk around 2010 or bringing back the Isetta. It was killed because there is no market support when most don't care about how much they pay for gas and the market is SUVs, not small commuter cars.

I don't see how it could be any more dangerous than a 50cc scooter.