At present, I drive a city car. By official classification, it’s significantly small, and therefore, less demanding when it comes to parking space. However, when I visit my in-laws, it’s not small enough to be comfortably driven into a cul-de-sac, the parking space available for a small cluster of apartments. In this neighbourhood in suburban Chennai, almost every household owns a car. It’s worse when I drive it in the congested central parts of the city every day to meet the demands of my profession. All this forces me to ask if we are headed in the right direction with city cars.
It’s probably time we went back to the past. Nearly 10 years ago, in an episode of BBC’s motoring show Top Gear , Jeremy Clarkson echoed this sentiment, more eloquently. He said he’d found the future of personal mobility and it came from the 1960s. This comment followed a drive in the world’s smallest production car ever — the three-wheeled Peel P50. The highlights of the spin in this British car included Clarkson, towering at 6 feet and 5 inches, folding himself into the car that has only one seat, meant for the driver; and a trip through the passageways between cubicles at BBC’s television centre.
Clarkson deliberately feather-touched upon the downsides of the vehicle — with a 44cc engine, this machine was hardly quick and would miss today’s emission standards by a long mile — and chose to focus largely on its size, rather, the lack of it. Do watch this old episode on YouTube: Clarkson is hilarious and perceptive at the same time.
Considering the congestion on our roads, microcars — the real microcars — belong to our times, as Clarkson remarked. For me, besides their utilitarian value, there is an irresistible aesthetic side to them. Anyone who has watched Mr Bean in his orange and green Minis will know what I am talking about. Ten years ago, at a gathering of antique car enthusiasts and their machines, I had the privilege of sitting in a kei car — the Japanese equivalent of a microcar. I am referring to a Mazda Carol 600. At the event, this cute little machine put even cars many sizes bigger in the shade, simply because of its reduced dimensions.
Given the factors of easy parking, fuel efficiency and aesthetics, there is a case for bringing back the microcar. Already, this argument is buttressed by a comeback story.
Peel P50, produced by Peel Engineering Company in the 1960s, returned in 2010 with improvements, but continues to have a 49cc petrol engine.
However, there is also an electric model of this microcar, now manufactured by Peel Engineering Ltd.
The electric Peel is the symbol of where we should be headed in the future. Battery-driven microcars address environmental and traffic concerns. There have to be more, and they have to come sooner than later.
