Apparently, it was quite common in Europe to for cars to be roughly the size to fit one adult...

Apparently, it was quite common in Europe to for cars to be roughly the size to fit one adult, and as the small size would imply, they were incredibly unsafe and had incredibly weak, slow engines. In a way, they are less safe than motorcycles and slower to boot. So my question to you, Veeky Forums, is; can super-compact cars like pic related be viable modes of transportation? If so, what kind of changes would need to be done to make small, single-person cars viable today?

Forget about these cars existing in the US, where the average vehicle is easily 4 times the size.

The closest modern equivalent is the Smart Fortwo. it exemplifies everything those cars stood for but has great crash test ratings.

No one would buy them when used cars exist. I can see automated ones being bought by a transport company though, say uber cutting out the driver with a fleet of these shits

Kei cars are about as small as you need to go.

It's still common, although the size grew up a bit and now the smallest vehicles can fit two people.
They call them microcars over here.

They are usually powered by a 1 or 2 cylinders diesel engines or similarly underpowered engine.
They also exploit some kind of legal loophole where they can be taxed and sold as a variation of a motorcycle rather than a small car, so they can skip most safety regulations and sell what is basically a tin can that is only marginally safer than a bike, is slow as cancer, vibrates like crazy and, most of the time, is ugly as sin.

This is as small as you can get here, the smallest I can think of is the Piaggio Ape, which is a 3wheeler one seater, but it has a cargo bed in the back so it's not smaller than microcars.

Those are popular amongst rich kids here in Italy, they are surprisingly expensive (can go dangerously close to 10k€, which is more than some base model legit cars) and there is also a pretty big rice culture about them.

Needless to say, being Italy, the rice on those is absolutely atrocious

The only reason anyone buys them in Europe is they can be driven on a motorcycle licence that you can get before a car licence.

>tfw no beat

Depends how it is done, really.
Single-seat cars have proven not to interest the public because, as it turns out, people do not see the car as simply a mean of transporting one's self but of transporting anything that can fit into it. When it comes to simple personnal transportation for just one person, scooters and small bikes are often preferred because they are more agile, take less room, are less expensive to buy and insure.
Single-person cars have never worked because two-wheeled modes of transportation beat them at this game.
That said, it's possible that two-seaters microcars could make a comeback with EVs being all the rage these days and with quite a few european countries openly wanting to transition towards less dependence on the ICE.
Can't talk for all of Europe but that sort of electric microcars have a pretty bad reputation in France where they can be driven without licence and are mostly found in the poorest neighbourhoods where they are driven by the lowest of the lower classes, those who lost their licence and can't afford to pass it again, or who never had it in the first place, those who are stuck in a job far from them but can't afford any better form of transportation. Microcar makers like Ligier have been trying to modernize their production and make it more appealing by getting it closer to the very trendy Renault Zoe, Nissan Leaf and other EVs, so we'll see where it goes from there. And Ligier in particular is getting some pretty good publicity after grabbing the state contract to equip our postal services with all electric microvans (which are actually pretty interesting, small cargo vans with varying sizes for less than 12k€ brand new and no licence required).

The Ape is longer than these though, isn't it?
And it is actually somewhat practical.

Yeah that's what I said, the Ape fo sure has a smaller cockpit, but the cargo bed makes the whole thing bigger than a microcar.
I'm too lazy to check if this is true though, it won't be much larger, the Ape is still a tiny fucker

For a "tiny fucker" it sure is driven by the biggest dicks
>yes, I can cherrypick what rules apply to me because I'm neither a car nor a bike
>VAFFA PEDONI, AREA PEDONALE SONO MIE REEEEEEEE

>make small, single-person cars viable today?

They are viable. For limited applications. They are OK for driving in town. By old or crippled people.

>these cars existing in the US

Not until Trump shuts down NHTSA and lts people make their own judgements about how much safety they want. I can get a motorcycle and completely risk my life. Any additional safety should be a buyer's option.

What the fuck is up with these. In the usa we have this weird segment now that goes like this.
Subcompact-compact-midsized-fullsized..There also is a "small car" designation of the chevy sonic which in reality is just a subcompact and then the spark which is smaller than a subcompact so its what? I have no fucking idea what they were getting at with it.

I'd rather judge drive a motorcycle at that point TB.H FA.M SM.H TB.H

>Apparently, it was quite common in Europe to for cars to be roughly the size to fit one adult

They were never even remotely common.

>this is modern Italian poorfag Veeky Forums youth culture
how the mighty have fallen

>Piaggio Ape
USAfag had to look this up

>People actually drive these as transportation, and are dicks about it
lolyurop

I wouldn't say it is for the poorfags, at least here in Italy they are quite expensive so they are usually bought by kids with rich (or deep in debt) parents and by old people that for whatever reason don't have a proper licence and dump their pension into those traps.
I honestly don't know if there is much of a used market for microcars, they don't seem the kind of vehicle that can survive many years and multiple owners.


Still..The tuning scene for those is absolutely atrocious.

Italy, for the most part, is still stuck with the kind of rice you were seeing when the first F&F came out, the rest evolved in what people here call "German tuning" (much cleaner looks, flat surfaces and so on), which is basically what most stance cars look today, minus the ridiculous camber.
Proper stance is a very small minority here.

What happened? Why are Russians driving in VIP'd W214s and LS400s while Italians are stuck ricing some chink no name microcars?

It's econobox "tuning" taken to the extreme with kids getting whatever they can afford and ricing it to death. Then they move on to bigger stuff when they can.
not reporting from Italy but here we have something similar with scooters being modded and such by kids in their late teens who still don't have a full licence and thus can't get a cooler car to work with.
Give it five or six years and the few that still are into "tuning" then give up on their football-team livery scooter and get Mercs or BMWs.

Yeah I get the scooter thing but why not get a cheap bimmer or even a Celica instead of an econobox if you have a full license and are looking for a "enthusiast" car?

...

I'd buy one of those little fuckers and drive it around the town for shit and giggles.

Too bad they are way overpriced for the tuna cans they really are.

max comfo

In th UK we used to have these for disabled people

We are talking about pretty young folks here and unlike in the USA, in most of Europe you cannot have a full licence until the age of 18. So microcars and scooters are the only motorized things you can own.
Again, once they get a full licence then they do move to bigger stuff. that sort of thing is really done by people too young to have a full licence, these are never long-lasting projects or vehicles that remain on the road for very long (and as far as I know, modded scooters are cannibalized for parts rather than sold)

Honestly being in the US and not seeing them around it would be fun to buy one for cheap and mod the hell out of it.

Cars are quite expensive in Italy to buy, even used (the transaction is taxed, even between privates, for the same amount of the annual tax), so most kids stick with whatever they can inherit from grandparents or is cheapest on the dealership lot.
Then they take all the cash they get from their parents or from whatever seasonal job they can do and dump it into the cheapest tuning accessories they can find, which usually follow the good old F&F school of design.

Cars are taxed by power and a good chunk of the insurance rate is calculated by engine displacement, so anything beyond shitboxes is prohibitively expensive for most kids.

>tfw no AZ-1 to park next to all the gargantuan brodozers in Texas

They are called microcars. They normally have a twin cylinder 400cc diesel engine. Due to their weight/power ratio, they can be driven with a moped license (category AM - 50cc limit, 45km/h max).

The most known manufacturer is a french company named aixam. Here's a common one. They are driven either by youngsters (15 years and up) or old people.

9,999GDP retail for the base model

>WHY

Because people will pay that for one of those.

Did someone say amerifat luxobarge thread?

scuse me on my fifth trip to mcdonalds today buuurp

>be disabled
>drive around in one of these until you get into an accident and die on impact
>no longer disabled

>They also exploit some kind of legal loophole where they can be taxed and sold as a variation of a motorcycle rather than a small car, so they can skip most safety regulations and sell what is basically a tin can that is only marginally safer than a bike, is slow as cancer, vibrates like crazy and, most of the time, is ugly as sin.
Caveat emptor

Think of them as a safe alternative to a scooter for the underage not an alternative to a car for people with full licenses.

Because they are trying to tap into the "small electric urban cars" market and expand out of their current niche, they want to compete with the small EVs, the Smart car and that sort of stuff.
They were aimed at youngsters but you never see anyone younger than 40 driving them in France. It's much cheaper and easier to get a scooter.

Smart Fortwo's unibody is really impressively strong for what it is, but there are still practical limits to what is survivable in a crash.

Test ratings are relative to a car's class- your Smart might not cave in much if it gets hit by a Suburban, but being knocked around like a hockey puck is still going to bang up the meat bag(s) inside. Experiencing G-forces beyond a certain threshold is likely to result in severe injury or worse, even if the occupants aren't crushed.

>Test ratings are relative to a car's class
No they aren't.

Does anyone throw superbike engines in these?

I want one because they look fun as fuck to drive and many are as complex as a 60's car = can just fix it yourself.
Not gonna get one until there's a reasonable second hand market with spare parts and shit going around though.
Pic related can be bought 1 year old with 1,000km for 5,000€

Don't forget about the cost of hiring the battery pack on top of that.

Yeah, that's the kind of bullshit that has to go as well.
Although if the manufacturers don't it would be piss easy for 3rd party to make a real battery for it

>youngsters (15 years and up) or old people

And drunks since you can still drive one of those after you lose your regular drivers licence.