Tuesday, October 12, 2010

What's the smallest car you've owned?

1979 Honda Civic 1200 - Subcompact Culture
While driving my Yaris to and from my newish day job, I got to thinking: The Yaris is a small car, especially next to some of the larger vehicles I park next to in the lot. However, the Yaris isn't the smallest car I've ever owned. That title easily goes to the 1979 Honda Civic 1200 my roommate Scott and I owned in college.

That little Civic—with its 1200cc carbureted engine, 145/80/12 tires, two-speed Hondamatic transmission, and bumpers that had been welded on from an early '80s Nissan Sentra—was a great little car. It started in the Arctic-like temps of NW Wisconsin (manual choke and all), and cut through the snow like a sharp knife through Bratwurst. It was darn small and it was great; the thing couldn't have weighed more than 1,800 lbs. It's probably the only car I wish I hadn't gotten rid of, actually. However, that Hondamatic transmission really sapped the power, and I use "power" in the most scientific of definitions. It generated power, however, it was not powerful. Here's a video from 2001 of me driving (Scott filming) in our trusty '79. Which leaves just one question:

What's the smallest car you've ever owned?


7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Subaru 360! Can we post pics in this comment box?

Andy Lilienthal said...

Unfortunately, you can't post pictures in the comments (a Blogger software deal).

burnitwithfire said...

1991 VW Golf Diesel, just 60mm shorter than my current 2010 Accent. Relatively the same size and weight. It had a beastly 52hp non-turbo diesel. I'd race neck-to-neck with 3 cyl Geo metros and garbage trucks!!!

nlpnt said...

Funny you should mention Metros, I had one of them - a '93 three-door in that non-metallic bright blue. Mine was manual and a coworker had an identical (but automatic and maroon) one and I always wanted to drag race them to see which one was quicker to 60 - the auto was a 3-speed with a massive power loss but the manual ran out of breath at 55 in second and needed an upshift to 3rd to hit 60!

Scott said...

Garm, since you cant post pics, you CAN post links!

i miss the '79. i should have spent the money for a parking spot for it at school that last year. me is LAME.

shoes said...

Smallest car I've ever owned is the 1995 Beetle. Mine is metallic blue. Nice car but now too small for someone with a family.

Steve "SailDesign" Baker said...

Fiat 126 (not the Polski, the Real Deal) with big rubber strips down the sides so you can play Bumper cars without scratching it.