Have you ever seen a car that are so small you can tell just by looking at them you'd never able to drive? A while back I saw a King Midget up close for the first time, and at 5'11 1/2" tall I knew this right away.

http://www.kingmidgetcarclub.org/

The model at this link here is the big one.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:King_Midget_Model_III.jpg

Forget about putting your feet through the floorboard. I'd end up putting my feet through the headlights. Golf carts have more room than these.

I also saw an MG Midget for the first time in years, and felt the same way. The driver looked like he was barley 5'6". The same goes for the original Austin Minis.


Now here's something else; I recently attended a wedding for my brother. Prior to this, I got in an accident with the Toyota Corolla(another car I can barley fit in) before I got my current Honda Accord at home. Anyway, his father-in-law drives a Nissan Versa, and said he knew somebody who worked for a Nissan dealership and could get me a good deal. I tried to sit in the driver's seat of this car for the first time, and I couldn't fit in this one either. I still remember commercials for the Versa boasting about the allegedly excessive room for such a small car.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vDO_xVtWU78

But for somebody like me, that's just not true.

So who else has had experiences like this?

Maybe not too small to physically drive, but some that are so small I wouldn't want to drive or be seen in:

Smart (ugh I hate them so much)




Geo Metro




Daewoo Lanos




Citroen C1 (ugliest car EVER!)




Ford Festiva




Nissan Micra (the bug-eye freak of the car world... ewwww)

My dad use to drive an old VW Beetle (which is a small car) and he said it is very cramped and very uncomfortable. He also said the Morris Minor is one of the worst car he ever owned.

Not to be offensive, I don't think the Citroen C1 and Smart is an ugly car. They are very beautiful to me.

Small car that I dislike (Worst supermini)

Daihatsu Charade
Fiat Cinquetto
Fiat 126
Daihatsu Mira
Chevrolet Aveo
Hyundai Atos



Small cars that I like (My fav supermini)

Peugeot 1007
Smart
Citoren C1
The new Fiat 500 Nuova
1990 Fiat Tipo
Renault Clio
Fiat Panda
Renault 5

The Beetle is not so small, it is 4m long.
I do not have problem with "small" cars like the C1, Metro etc.
My parents often had such cars (they hesitated between the Suzuki Swift - same as the Metro - and the Peugeot 205 at a time, but finally bought the 205), e.g.: 1984 Honda Civic, Peugeot 106/205, or a Peugeot 104zs and a Renault 5 long time before.
I had a Peugeot 106, same size as the Metro/205. Now I have the 206sw, which is a little bigger, but still "only" 4m long. I do not really want a bigger car: in city here it is too big
The smart must be good for that, but that one is really short, I am not sure I would be comfortable with that. But it is maybe just a question of getting used to it.

When I was in Italy about ten years ago Smart cars where everywhere.
There werent realy that mouch parkingsspace there but with a Smart car that was no problem.
I was also amazed when wisiting Paris two years ago. In Sweden you dont think of a Volvo or Saab as a werry big car.
But on the streets of central Paris a Volvo V70 or Saab 9-3 looked huge.

Indeed the C1 is one of my favourite car

Small cars are meant for city usage, but not suitable for long distance driving

Not even "seen" too small cars, I've even made the experience to stuck in cars and couldn't leave them without help.

One time, when I've sat on a NSU-meeting in a Thurner RS (a handmade sport-coupe of fibreglass, based on a NSU TT).
And years later in a Daihatsu(?) Copen(?), when I've visited my Japanese friend. No joking, I couldn't leave and had to yell "Hiroshi, I'm stuck! Please pull me out!"
Disgusting.


And one time a friend an me have presented a scene, which was worth for a slapstick-show. Fortunately it happend i nthe pre-Youtube-times.
It was at our New Zealand-trip in 1998. We rented a car at "Rent-a-wreck" in Auckland. The have offered ca.12-13 old cars, used imports from Japan.
Because we left our luggage in the motel, we had no need for a bigger car, so we have chosen the smallest one. It was a 1986 Honda Jazz (Jazz was the name in Europe).
I (1.89 meter, 110 kg) could sit behind the steering wheel, but it was impossible to screw my legs between pedals an steering-wheel, absolute impossible! No way.
And my friend (1.90 meter, 155 kg) even couldn't use the passenger's seat. It must have been an incredible view, how we were crawling around in the car, but couldn't make it.
Then we went back in office and gave the keys back. We took a 1986 Honda Civic Shuttle, this was usable.



@Ddey65 and taxguy: the cars you are showing, aren't real micro-cars, just smaller cars. In the Europe of the 50ies, we had REAL microcars.

And hundreds of thousands of Europeans culd handle with them for many years.
When my parents were studying in the late 60ies, a friend of them had a Messerschmitt Kabinenroller. He lived in Aurich, a town in the farest Nortwest of Germany, close to the North Sea. His girl-friend lived in Graz, Southern Austria. And yes, he had visited her minimum one time per month. :shock:


In the NSU-fan-scene there is a well known old couple from the town of Hildesheim. They are owning -since 1964 in first hand- a turquoise NSU Prinz 4. The back window of the NSU is full with stickers from everywhere in Europe, even Romania, Iceland, Soviet Union and so on.
Proudly they've told me "Sure the stickers are only from countries,where we had been ourselves. We've travelled in every European country, to the Eastern Block-countries all before 1990".
I got big, uncomprehending eyes and an irritated "Eeeh, yes. For sure. Why?" as answer on my (obviously naive) question: "Have you travelled always with your NSU?"
For they it's absolutely self-evident to travel across the whole continent with a 30hp-car from 1964...

@Antoine: the Beetle is quite long, but indeed narrow inside.
For me it's an incredible car. But everyone says this, who ad driven ever its rival NSU Prinz. My 1200 C was not small inside, eough space for the legs, a respectable front trunk - and it was much faster than a VW.

When I was small, a neighbour had a Renault 8. Even for me as a child it looked narrow inside.
When I've been 12 years, old the Fiat 126 (an early, pre-Polish one) of annother neighbour had the ideal size for me. I could sit perfectly, could reach all handles and knobs, could look around and so on.
Nowadays I've the opinion, that the Fiat with 4 numbers more would fit better to me. 130 than 126.

I know someone who was as high as you (around 1m90) and wanted a small car of the same size as the Peugeot 106 etc. (end of 90s). The only one in which he could site comfortably was the Lancia Y (from what he said, as this was the reason why he bought that car rather than a cheaper one like the 106/Saxo/...)
When he was younger he had a Fiat 500

but in the Fiat he had to sit on the back seat for driving, eeh?


I must ask the webmaster of our club-page www.k70-club.de , if he has a photo of a legendary view, he had given once to the habitants of a small Sicilian village, where he had been on vacations. He sat in a Fiat 500. On the back seat and the head out of the open cloth-roof. Andreas is 2.07 meter tall.

My parents once test drove a Toyota Yaris, and even my mother couldn't fit in the car... and she's 5'1"! This is a woman who had a '63 Volkswagen Beetle before I was born. I sat behind the back seat of a Beetle from the 1970's when I was a kid, and even though I was short for my age back then, I knew before I turned 10 that the days of being able to fit back there were short lived. Today, I'm convinced the Accord is the smallest Honda I can fit in, which is too bad, because some of the recent Civics look nice.

that makes 1.55m, no way, I went in a Yaris with my 1.74m and it was way big enough, I could have been bigger without problem.

I'm about 1.86m (6'1" and a bit) and I once drove a Yaris and I don't remember it being too small. Someone who is 5'1" should be able to fit into the back seat of any car that isn't a 2+2 sports car (only enough legroom for a very small child in some of those). Or maybe the problem here isn't height...

Since I'm not exceptionally tall, I can't think of any cars, at least no modern cars, that are too small for me, although perhaps I might have found the old Mini a bit cramped. Apart from the very tall, the only people who seem to have a problem with small cars seem to be Americans...

Modern cars a smaller inside, even if they are bigger from the outside, than classic ones from the 50ies to the 70ies, because it's so much plastic end electric stuff inside (airbags are needing much space).
BMW has started with these big dashboard-constructions in the 70ies, later the other have done the same.

No kidding, in my NSU 1200 C I had more space for the legs and to the side than in a modern 5 Series BMW.

Is there any modern passenger's car, where it's possible to slip from the driver's seat to the passenger's seat?
You see...

I went to the Goodwood Breakfast Club today (all the cars are brought by whoever comes along) and saw an Austin Seven and it looked like it was designed for children, I'd probably find it awkward behind the wheel of one of those.

I like the Smart, I have seen some around, and they meander through Wilmington nicely. They look nice given their body proportions. Its not that I don’t like small city cars because of there small size, most I don’t like because of their cosmetic appearance.

Out of that list, I for sure would rather have the Smart.

How can you even say that? The smart is the ugliest car ever designed (cosmetically regardless of its size). I honestly don't know how anyone can not hate it, let alone like it. It doesn't even deserve the title of car really, it's rather just a rolling misshapen phone booth.

Besides it's completely pointless cosmetics aside, since you can get the same mileage out of a car that's actually large enough to be called a "car".

It's funny because the Ford Contour (Mondeo) is the only car that I felt was too small to drive even though it's a midsize. It felt smaller than a Ford Escort on the inside. It's the only car I've ever driven that I maxed out the seat all the way back. Even driving a Ford Focus or Ford Escort I didn't have the seat all the way back! I'm not that tall either at 5' 11".

I had the impression, that the car is too small inside to feel comfortable, in a Mercedes 190 [W201]. I haven't liked it.

Seats have a lever underneath so you can move the seat forward and backward, try that next time.



I like the Smart as well, and if I happened to live in a big capital city like Madrid could be I for sure buy that if I needed a second car to move along the city during all the day and everyday, it's incredible the amount of them you can find in that city, which proves how comfortable that car is for such cities, more than paying attention to the design (for which I have nothing against anyway) we should see it as a practical vehicle for an specific use, and when you don't happen to have a private garage it definetly has to be useful to move in one of these and be easy to park them anywhere, I've even seen them parked perpendicular to the row of cars by the curb, they fit anywhere.