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© Fiat Chrysler Automobiles
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© Fiat Chrysler Automobiles
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© Tony Baker/Classic & Sports Car
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© Tony Baker/Classic & Sports Car
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© Renault
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© Classic & Sports Car
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© What Car?
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© Fiat Chrysler Automobiles
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© Public Domain
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© What Car?
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© What Car?
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© Tony Baker/Classic & Sports Car
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© What Car?
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© What Car?
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© What Car?
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© What Car?
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© What Car?
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© Classic & Sports Car
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© Fiat Chrysler Automobiles
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© Tony Baker/Classic & Sports Car
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© What Car?
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These classic tiddlers prove a motor car can be small and mighty
Building a small car is no mean feat: you have to squeeze maximum space from minimum size at the lowest possible cost. And it has to look sweet enough to excuse the basic level of appointment, without handling like a Hoover.
Get it wrong and you’ll have a machine that’s neither cute nor clever. Get it right, though, and you’ll likely have a best-seller on your hands – as these diminutive winners prove.
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Fiat 500 Topolino
So cute you could hug it, Fiat’s 500 of 1936-’55 was a real motor car, merely reduced in scale. A far-forward engine arrangement made it a genuinely spacious two-seater, with room for two little ones on the back bench if you opened up the soft-top variant.
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Mini
The Mini redefined car design, proving you could fit a four-pot engine, four seats and decent space in a 10ft box. That Alec Issigonis’ creation was noisy and uncomfortable was besides the point, especially given it delivered exemplary handling and more fun per inch than anything else.
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Ford Model Y
Banal it might have been, but the Model Y made Ford a powerhouse in Europe, giving consumers of modest means something with more style and get-up-and-go than an Austin Seven, for roughly the same cash. Its scaled-down Detroit looks helped, too.
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Renault 4CV
Sure, the rear-engine, swing-axle 4CV could land you on your roof if you pushed too hard, but put a sack of potatoes in the front boot, drive within its limits and you’d find a winsome little thing with four doors, four decent seats, a sweet engine and a deliciously delicate gearchange.
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Austin Seven
Rudimentary but well-made, the Baby Austin saved its manufacturer, reshaped the British market, was in production for 17 years and still has a fervent fan base. A proper car in miniature – with a water-cooled engine and four-wheel brakes – it enjoyed a long afterlife as the basis for countless specials.
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Renault 5
Versatile, cheeky and surprisingly comfortable thanks to torsion-bar suspension, the plastic-bumper Renault 5 was a supermini pioneer. Wrapping the mechanicals of its R4 and R6 siblings in a sweeter shell, the little Cinq proved a runaway success, with more than 5.5m built between 1972 and 1986.
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Fiat Nuova 500
Cheap, thrifty and just about capable of taking four small people, the Fiat 500’s cherubic charm and Artful Dodger handling mask its noisy air-cooled engine, crash gearbox and unsuitability for long-distance travel. With the roof flung back, it’s impossible not to be beguiled by this inimitable, iconic Italian.
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Citroën 5HP
With its ducktail body, this little 856cc machine – the first small Citroën to take on Peugeot and Renault – looked just right, but it was canned at the peak of its popularity in 1926 because it cost as much to make as its bigger 10hp sibling.
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Renault Twingo
The first intelligent small car since the Mini, the Twingo was bravely wider than a Clio, but shorter and taller, resulting in a spacious interior with sliding rear seats. Cheap and cheerful to a tee, it could be built in just 14 hours.
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Peugeot 205
Perceived as a supermini yet a foot longer than a Metro, the 205 was a roomy four-seater capable of being all the car you could need. Comfy, refined, economical, well-suspended and blessed with a big boot, it was also impressively light. Some 5.3m were made across several variants, including the hooligan GTI.
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Hillman Imp
The first mass-built British car with an aluminium engine – at the back, no less – the Hillman Imp was more refined than the Mini, but poor initial reliability conspired against it, before fools from Chrysler torpedoed workforce morale and trashed its already inadequate quality.
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Austin Metro
Seriously underrated, British Leyland’s little legend was glassy, smooth-riding, sweet-handling, and blessed with exceptional space utilisation. Built for 18 years and badged variously as an Austin, an MG and a Rover, the Metro never replaced the Mini as it was meant to, but some 2.1m were still built.
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Peugeot 104
Dull styling and a drab interior counted against Peugeot’s first small car since WW2, yet beneath the bodywork the 104 was a practical four-door with decent refinement and ride. More charismatic was the Citroën Visa, with which it shared its mechanicals.
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Volkswagen Polo MkI
One of the most ubiquitous small cars of today, the humble Polo first appeared in 1975 with a revvy engine, crisp comportment and good build quality. All it – and its Audi 50 cousin – lacked was character, which might be why so few survive.
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Fiat Panda
Introduced in 1980 with a chic, square-edged shell by Giorgetto Giugiaro, you’ll still find many an original Panda nipping through the narrow streets of old Italian towns. Its leaf-sprung rear suspension was crude, but cabin features such as a pouch-like dash and hammock back seat made it neat.
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Smart ForTwo
At just 2.5m long, the original Smart Fortwo could comfortably park across the width of most parking bays. Sure, it had to be re-engineered to stop it falling over, but the compact, Mercedes-built motor rapidly became a symbol of urban mobility in the new millennium.
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Austin A30
Built for just four years in the 1950s, the Austin A30 wasn’t hugely well-executed, with weak front suspension and strange semi-hydraulic brakes, but economies such as a single windscreen wiper meant it cost 10% less than a Morris Minor – which is probably why 223,000 people bought one.
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Fiat 127
Launched as a two-door with a vile gearbox and a propensity to rust, the 127 evolved to become a good front-drive package, gaining a boot flap in ’73 and a better ’box in ’77. Widely regarded as the first true supermini, an impressive 80% of its floor space was for passengers and their bags.
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Autobianchi A112
The older sister to the 127, Autobianchi’s long-lived A112 was the first supermini with an in-line gearbox. Compact and mechanically sound, its hatchback versatility – albeit limited by a high sill – led to huge popularity, with the Milanese factory churning out 1.2m of the Gandini-designed things.
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Toyota Aygo
Built in the same factory as the Citroën C1 and Peugeot 107, Toyota’s dinky Aygo cost more than its rebadged French relations but remained a steal at £7k, offering admirable in-car stowage, cheeky looks, low running costs, good reliability and decent driving. Its insurance band made it a hit with young drivers, too.