The smallest car in the world is really just a micro-car that is built to accommodate a single person. The car that holds this distinction is the Peel P50, the smallest production car in the world. It holds a Guinness Book of World Records title for this status.
Small, micro-cars such as the BMW Isetta and Smart Cars from Mercedes Benz have always satisfied an economical niche in the auto market. Mini cars in India are small but compared to micro-cars such as the Peel P50, they are giants, several times larger, wider and taller.
Let’s look at two of the smallest cars ever built, the Peel P50 and the BMW Isetta.
The smallest road car ever built – The Peel P50
Today the words compact and convenient have been taken for granted and manufacturers around the globe christen their cars as compact sedans or compact SUVs. However, almost all these cars can seat 5 adults in comfort, and their engines are large enough to travel long distances.
One may often wonder, what is the smallest car in the world? We all know about the Smart car from Mercedes Benz that was built as a city commuter and is half the size of a regular passenger car, often able to squeeze into a parallel parking spot at a perpendicular angle. But has there ever been a car smaller than that?
Specifications:
The Peel P50 is a three-wheeler with a wheelbase of just 1,270 mm (that is only 50 inches). Considering the waist size for a pair of jeans is almost 36 inches, you can begin to imagine how small this P50 is. It can just about squeeze one person in its tiny sized cabin, with one’s knees up against the sides and underneath the steering wheel.
The Peel P50 was built from 1962 to 1965, and only fifty examples were produced in that time by the Isle of Man Peel Engineering Company. It was officially inducted into the Guinness Book of World Records as the smallest production car ever built.
Its dimensions are 134 cm long, 98 cm wide with a height of 100 cm, weighing just 56 kg, and was designed to carry just one person. The engine is a 49 cc DKW built unit mated to three-speed gearbox sans a reverse gear. The reason it didn’t have a reverse cog was it could just be pulled backwards by hand and featured a handle at the rear for just that.
Top speed is a humble 60 km/h with a fuel economy of 42 km per litre of petrol. Colours available for the Peel P50 include red, white and blue and there is a single door on the left-hand side of the cabin. The windshield featured a single wiper and the front end had a single headlight.
The car had been reincarnated in 2010 and is hand built by a micro-car specialist company in the United Kingdom who offer the car in a petrol and electric version.
Also Read: Top 5 Benefits Of Selling A Car For Cash To The Car Buyer Company
Second smallest micro-car in the world – The Isetta
The Isetta is by far the most recognized micro-car the world has ever seen. It is known by its bubble body shape and single door that opens from the front end with a collapsible steering column to make way for the driver to get in.
The Isetta was designed in Italy in the 1950s and took the world by storm due its cute looks and tiny engine. It was a two-seater built by Iso Autoveicoli. The designs were later licensed to BMW, VELAM and Romi who sold many models in the years following its inception.
It was initially powered by a 236 cc, 10 bhp two-stroke motorcycle engine with a four-speed transmission that even had a reverse gear. Models had different dimensions, but the first examples originally measured 229 cm in length and 137 cm in width.
The BMW built Isetta got a 298 cc, four-stroke engine that had a top speed of 85 km/h becoming the best-selling single-cylinder car in the world. BMW manufactured nearly 161,728 examples of the Isetta and sold all of them. Fuel consumption was a frugal 40 km/litre of petrol.
Conclusion
Compact cars have been receiving a lot of attention in recent times, especially with fuel prices soaring high, congested city traffic, and lack of parking spots for large vehicles.
The perfect solution to this is a micro-car like the Peel P50 or the BMW Isetta. Not only can you zip through traffic jams with ease in these cars, you can always find a parking space, and you end up saving big time on fuel costs. The only disadvantage is probably that your best friend can’t ride with you.
People are fond of driving interesting cars, and the P50 and Isetta definitely qualify as interesting, if not unique and cute.
If you liked reading this article on the smallest cars in the world, perhaps you would like to read another interesting article about the BH Series Number Plate in India.
