The slowest car in the World

[jz78817]

@dtilque

This reminds me of a time in High School French class. For some reason the 2CV came up, I think the textbook mentioned them. The teacher said that CV was the French abbreviation for horsepower. I assumed that that was the actual horsepower of its engine and my reaction, and I made this out loud, was something like “there’s lawn mowers with more horsepower than that”. Note this was in 1970 when pretty much all mowers were the stand up and push kind; there were sitting mowers then, but very rare.

The teacher was not especially knowlegable about cars, so she was apparently unaware of this. Or at least she didn’t have anything to say in reply to my comment.

The whole thing was complicated by France’s concept of [Tax horsepower - Wikipedia]tax horsepower.]([FONT=Helvetica)[/FONT]

[Jennshark]

@mixdenny

No problem, back to the same reference books:

In 1967 the fastest car in the world was the Lamborghini P400 Miura at 186.4 mph. The fastest American car was the Corvette 427, 435hp at 162 mph. The fastest little car was the Fiat Abarth OT 2000 at 167.8 mph. I always loved the OT 2000 as the spare tire stuck out the front of the car and was the front bumper.

Fiat 850 Coupé Abarth 2000 OT - Wikipedia

In 1969 the fastest car was still the Miura, still at 186.4 mph. The fastest American car was still the 'Vette. The fastest small car honors went to the Alfa Romeo 33 Coupe at 161.6 mph. It looked like a Ferrari but only had a 2 liter engine.

Notice how the small engine screamers are always Italian?

For the record, the slowest American cars for those 2 years was the Kaiser Jeep at 78 mph, faster than over 120 of the slowest foreign cars.

Dennis

Oooh, thanks for the research! These will be my “Wikipedia research treats” today.

Wanted to throw in that a high school friend had a 1979 or '80 Le Car; I think the top speed was 36mph, downhill. We called it “Le ShitBomb.” I’m kind of amazed that car didn’t kill all of us, it was smaller than a rollerskate.

[wolfpup]

@Shagnasty

Early Volkswagen Beetles weren’t that much better. Can you imagine taking one of those into the Alps or the Rocky Mountains on a really cold night? Even if you can make it up the hills with a running start, you still might freeze to death in the process because the only heater they had just burned your feet.

That’s not really fair to the venerable Beetle. The engine power had been cranked up to 40 HP by the early 60s, and the silky-smooth 4-speed transmission helped them make the most of it. They had a top speed somewhere in excess of about 72 mph (116 km/h) or better, which was usually adequate but admittedly a bit challenging going up a steep hill when the speed limit was 70 mph! The air cooled engine definitely didn’t put out a lot of heat in cold weather, but the auxiliary gas heater worked just fine. They had their detractors but there were good reasons the Beetle was very popular, not the least of which is that they were very well built and reliable in an era when many American cars were junk.

[Airman_Doors_USAF]

The slowest car in the world is whatever Sister Mary Bluehair is walking in the passing lane during her Sunday drive when you’re running a few minutes late.

[filmstar-en]

One of my friends had a 2CV and it was a very practical car. He was a mad Frenchman and he bought it because he had a tendency to drive too fast, he had been a few speed related accidents. The 2CV, while not robust, certainly helped to keep within the speed limit. It had pretty good suspension, legend has it that it was designed to help French farmers safely carry their eggs to market. It was fun to drive and had a very modest fuel consumption. We were young students and driving such a quirky French car impressed the ladies.

Small cars like this are very common in Europe, they are practical for the small streets and alleyways in many of the old towns and cities. While the French had the 2CV, in the UK we had a three-wheeler, the Reliant Robin. Three wheelers were popular because you could drive them on a motorbike-only drivers license and taxed at a lower rate than a four-wheel car.

https://classics.honestjohn.co.uk/top-10s/top-10-british-three-wheelers/

West Germany had the famous three wheeler Messerschmitt ‘bubble car’, whose design was supposedly based on the cockpit of the WW2 fighter. It had style.

Three wheel cars live on in the form of the auto-rickshaw which are very common across Asia.

Meanwhile, in communist East Germany, they went one better with the four-wheeled Trabant, which is certainly down there as possibly the worst car ever made. The contrast between the manufacturing prowess of the Capitalist West and Communist East Germany is very evident. This was a truly hideous car, but people still collect them:

The Trabant Was an Awful Car Made By Communists

These cars all have a following, there are owners clubs with meetings and rallies. They may have been awful and slow, but they bring a nostalgic tear to the eye and some are lovingly restored.

Even this embarrassment from the UK in the1980s. Born in the white heat of the microcomputer revolution of the 1980s. Clive Sinclair, the Elon Musk of his time, ruined his reputation by producing this abysmally slow three-wheeled electric car.

I give you the worlds slowest car: the Sinclair C5. Fifteen miles an hour!

Sinclair C5

:smack: